TALE 




OF A 



PIONEER CHURCH 



«*» 









By PETER VOGEL 



Why should they die, those deeds so nobly done 






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cjfej * 



CINCINNATI 

STANDARD PUBLISHING CO. 

1887 




j ^n/1 

^ ^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by the 

STANDARD PUBLISHING CO., 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



PREFACE. 

4 ' All history is a lie, " said Sir Robert Walpole ; and 
Landor insists that "no history is ever true." But so 
far as, under the circumstances, lay in my power I have 
sought, in the following pages, to give the lie to both 
of these lies. I prefer to believe with Kossuth that 
"history is the revelation of Providence;" and with 
Shenstone, ' ' A history will live, though written ever 
so indifferently." And why should not this be true of 
the following pages, since every character in them is 
either a hero or heroine ? If for no other reason, then 
at least on Massillon's principle: "Every Christian is 
born great because he is born for heaven." 

It has been said that ' ' history is philosophy teach- 
ing by example." If so, there is nothing local in the 
following pages, but rather a universal lesson for the 
benefit of all. 

No one can be more sensible than the author of 
how many splendid treasures lie buried in the mine 
and debris whence these were dug ; but that is no reason 
why these should be left to oblivion. Could the 
whole book be recast, its facts and lessons might be 
more judiciously marshalled. As it is, its form was 
largely determined by the required length of magazine 



IV. PREFACE. 

articles, and the new material that still kept coming in. 
It was far from my original intention, as may be gath- 
ered from the name it wears and the turn given to its 
earlier chapters, to made the work of such pretentious 
size ; but multiplying material and the urgency of even 
distant friends kept pushing me on. If unsolicited 
commendations from even total strangers are an index 
to its value, then this book has a mission, to the accom- 
plishment of which I now send it. 

Peter Vogel 
Somerset, Pa., Sept. 13, 1887. 






INTRODUCTION. 

The "Tale of a Pioneer Church," written by Peter 
Vogel, is happily conceived and well executed. The 
church in Somerset, Pa., is not only one of the very 
first that joined in the religious movement led by 
Alexander Campbell — if, indeed, it did not, along with 
other religious communities, precede his work — but 
also is one of the very strongest in intellectual ability and 
most refined in polite culture among the Disciples of 
Christ. No church among us has produced men 
more widely known than Judge Black, Chauncey For- 
ward, and Charles Ogle, or bttter versed in the Script- 
ures than Posthlethwaite, Huston, Bevins, Snyder, 
Henry Schell, and Jacob Schell, or more zealous in de- 
votion than the three Marys. Nor has the church dur- 
ing recent years lived on its past reputation. It has 
to-day a very large, intelligent and influential member- 
ship, sound in the faith, and adhering to the principles 
of the Reformation with an allegiance which challenges 
one's admiration. It was my high privilege to preach 
for this church for a short time, and I found that those 
who were once Disciples at Somerset were Disciples 
when they moved to other parts of the country. I 
know it has been said of Judge Black, as well as of 



VI. INTRODUCTION. 

Garfield, that after attaining high official position he 
did not entertain as great respect for Mr. Campbell's 
work, nor acknowledge allegiance even to those re- 
ligious principles that had commanded his assent in 
earlier life. Being invited to dine with Judge Black on 
one of his visits to Somerset, I thought that if it came 
convenient I should like to hear from so great a man an 
estimate of Mr. Campbell and his work. The conver- 
sation turned in the direction of the liberalizing ten- 
dencies of the times, the breaking up of old party 
lines, and the reconstruction going on in our own his- 
tory, both civil and religious. I remarked, as a par- 
tial explanation of this, that one of the most singular 
things in the whole history of the church, and perhaps 
not destined to last, because not well founded, is, that 
so much more emphasis has been laid on correctness of 
belief rather than correctness of moral conduct, and 
that men are just beginning to see that Christianity is 
not exactly identical with their apprehension of it. 
That a good deed ought to be worth more than a good 
creed. And yet there is an intimate relation between 
correct thinking and correct living, and that it is neces- 
sary to have some form of theological belief in order 
to mental and moral integrity. Hereupon Judge Black 
took up the great dogmatic men of the world, and 
showed how they had changed the channels of thought. 
His march of mind through the philosophy of history 
was wonderful. He concluded by pronouncing the 



INTRODUCTION. Vll. 

finest eulogy on Alexander Campbell and his work I 
have ever heard. The Judge's keen, critical analysis, 
sympathetic exposition, breadth of view and weight of 
argument showed a master mind speaking of a master 
mind. 

In regard to Chauncey Forward, our people never 
knew how choice a man he really was. His letter on 
the division of the church over Masonry, for a calm, 
judicial view of the whole subject, for sympathy with 
the church, for moderation of spirit in heated contro- 
versy, has hardly been excelled in our whole history. 
It makes one regret that a man of such commanding 
talent did not give himself wholly to the ministry. The 
following is Judge Black's estimate : 

"Chauncey Forward was a thorough-bred lawyer — a careful 
thinker on any subject he undertook to handle. He marshalled his 
points with amazing skill. His power of amplification was almost un- 
limited. His pure character for integrity and wisdom made all hear 
him with deep interest, and whenever he rose 

" ' His look drew audience still as death.' 

His face was singularly fine and expressive. The low tones of his 
voice were as sweet a-; a lute. ' Persuasion sat on his lips.' " 

Joined to this high praise of Forward, Judge 
Black's " Brockie Book" contains the following re- 
specting Charles Ogle:* 

"Charles Ogle had no equal that I ever knew in a certain line of 
oratory. When his heart was in a cause and he became thoroughly 



"These two extracts came into possession of Brother Vogel too late to be in- 
serted in the body of the history, and are placed here because they are too valuable 
to be lost. 



Vlll. INTRODUCTION. 

aroused, he carried everything before him. His invective was irresis- 
tibly powerful and his ridicule the most overwhelming. He was not a 
student, did not know any more law than was necessary, indeed, never 
looked into a book unless with special reference to some particular 
case, but the ease with which he could post himself and the magnifi- 
cent style of his argument to a jury made law learning seem unneces- 
sary to him. He was beyond all comparison the greatest political orator 
of his day and generation. Those who could testify to this have nearly 
all passed away, but I have known many who served with him in 
Congress, and all united in saying that his assaults upon the Van Buren 
administration, though wholly unjustifiable, were marked with surpass- 
ing power and the highest tone of classical eloquence." 

These extracts show that some of the members of 
the Somerset Church were distinguished men ; and if 
the membership be not so distinguished now as for- 
merly, yet by this book they are likely to become as 
well known as any church in our ranks. Let those 
who appreciate the rich legacy bequeathed to them 
from a noble ancestry, join with the author of this 
history in honoring the fathers and mothers who, 
through toil and hardship, gained the victory. 

This book, I understand, grew out of a sermon for 
a district convention. But the author got glimpses 
of other material, and he kept on gathering for three 
years or more, and at considerable expense and pains- 
taking work. Often when he thought he had every- 
thing ready for a chapter he would have to drop the 
pen and go out to consult the " oldest inhabitant," 
court records, and other documents by the day. The 
author has done a piece of honest work, and deserves 



INTRODUCTION. IX. 

the thanks of our whole brotherhood. Not to make this 
Introduction any longer, this book shows the following : 
i. The author has gathered up and treated well a 
piece of very interesting local history, which will serve 
as the basis of general history. 

2. He has illustrated some of the first principles 
of our movement. It has come in his way to show that 
the real spirit of our movement is not sectarianism on 
the one hand, or legalism on the other. This narra- 
tive will help to make some churches "free" by "the 
truth." 

3. Church life and the pastorate have received help. 
No church can read this story of the three Marys and 
the other good people, "fair women and brave men," 
of this church, without feeling stimulated to a life of 
noble devotion. 

4. The book has a chapter on State missions, 
presenting statistics not otherwise accessible to the 
people, and showing the additions of some of the Bible 
Christians It shows the traditional grip of prejudice 
among those speaking Pennsylvania German against 
preachers who could speak only English. 

5. The brief sketches of various evangelists will 
help our young people to an acquaintance with men 
of the past and of the present; while irresponsible 
evangelists, of whom unfortunately Pennsylvania and 
West Virginia have had more than their share, have 
received their due. 



X. INTRODUCTION. 

And now, passing by the growth of the town in 
business, schools, papers, the publication of a quarto 
edition of Luther's version of the Scriptures here in 
1813, and much else of interest, may I not venture to 
express the hope that this book will be so freely 
bought that the author will be well paid for his long- 
continued and well-directed attention? 

W. H. WOOLERY. 

Bethany, W. Va., Sept. 10, 1887. 



CONTENTS. 

Chapter I. 
The Place and the Germ I 

Chapter II. 
A Happy Union 9 

Chapter III. 
Was it a Baptist Church ? 14 

Chapter IV. 
Genesis of Liberty 22 

Chapter V. 
Freedom Born 27 

Chapter VI. 
Reorganization 33 

Chapter VII. 
Chauncey Forward 45 

Chapter VIII. 
Elders and Deacons 58 

Chapter IX. 
The Three Marys 63 

Chapter X. 
The Three Marys — Continued 79 

Chapter XL 
Women in the New Testament 98 

Chapter XII. 

A Trio of Males no 

Chapter XIII. 
A Trio of Males — Continued 118 



Xll. CONTENTS. 

Chapter XIV. 

Evangelists 139 

Chapter XV. 
Evangelists — Continued 159 

Chapter XVI. 
Evangelists — Concluded 181 

Chapter XVII. 
Preachers at Somerset 205 

Chapter XVIII. 
Other Churches 215 

Chapter XIX. 

Controversy 222 

Chapter XX 

Soul-sleeping, Feet-washing, Trine Immersion, etc 236 

Chapter XXI. 
The Masonic Trouble 248 

Chapter XXII. 
Church Difficulties 257 

Chapter XXIII. 
Pastors 271 

Chapter XXIV. 
Pastors — Continued 282 

Chapter XXV. 
At Work and at Worship 297 

Chapter XXVI. 
The State 312 

Chapter XXVII. 
Some Causes of Failure , 334 

Chapter XXVIII. 
The Death of the Righteous 343 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE PLACE AND THE GERM. 



To the lover of nature's rugged beauty, Somerset 
county, Pennsylvania, presents superior attractions. 
The Alleghenies, that shake their eastern dews into the 
Atlantic and pour their western waters into the Gulf of 
Mexico, rise to the average height of 2, 800 feet in the 
eastern borders of this county, while its western edge is 
borne aloft to a similar altitude on the back of the 
Laurel Hills. About midway between the Maryland 
line on the south and its present northern limits, a high 
water-shed, (along which the proposed South Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad is surveyed), runs nearly east and west 
from mountain chain to mountain chain. Pheasants, 
wild turkeys, deer, and an occasional bear still invite 
the hunter's skill, and mountain trout attract the angler. 
Here winter comes earliest, stays longest, and throws 
its snowy mantle deepest in all the state, while the 
abundant laurel and the pine preach of life amid winter's 
death. Ere the deciduous forests disclose their spring- 
time buds, the modest trailing arbutus and the more ven- 
turesome bluelets invite the lovers of flowers abroad, 



2 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

while merry songsters pipe a sweet mountain air to cheer 
the search. 

Nature evidently designed this union of mountain 
and glade as a fascinating summer resort. As such it is 
used both by those who seek to escape the scorching 
heat of the cities and by those in quest of health. Even 
before the white man's foot had trodden here, the Shaw- 
anese Indians, a part of the Six Nations, held this region 
sacred to summer's hunting and fishing. Thick-strewn 
arrows, picked up by early settlers in favorite spots, 
showed how valiantly they defended their prize against 
intruders from neighboring tribes. 

A region so attractive found white settlers, chiefly 
hunters, some years before the treaty of 1768, which 
opened it up for lawful homes and resulted in making it 
first a part of Cumberland county, then of Bedford, and 
in 1795 Somerset county. At the latter date Bruners- 
town was changed to Somerset and made the county seat. 

Somerset is situated on the southern side and about 
the middle of the inter-mountain water-shed which di- 
vides the waters of the Allegheny from those of the 
Monongahela, and lies 2, 208 feet above sea-level, being 
the highest county seat in the commonwealth of Penn- 
sylvania. 

Turkey-Foot township, some twenty miles southwest 
of Somerset, afforded perhaps the first religious organi- 
zation for the worship of Jehovah in what is now Somer- 
set county; it was a Baptist church, constituted Sep- 
tember 14, 1775, being still in existence and known as 
the Jersey Church. Lutherans, German Reformed, and 
German Baptists or "Dunkards," came later, but 
stronger, with the increasing German population, fol^ 
lowed by Presbyterians, Methodists and others. 



THE PLACE AND THE GERM. 3 

The first churches in the village of Somerset were 
Lutheran, German Reformed and Presbyterian, planted 
about the close of the last and the beginning of the 
present century. But even then influences were at work 
that were destined in the end to place the predominancy 
in other hands. The key to permanent power in any 
community is the sanctified heart of an intelligent woman. 
Such a key Providence was fashioning by slow but sure 
processes. The second man appointed by the governor 
to fill the offices of prothonotary, register and recorder 
and clerk of orphans' courts of the new county, was 
Morgan J. Rhees, of Philadelphia, January, 1800. He 
and his wife Ann were devout, intelligent Baptists. Mr. 
Rhees died December 7, 1804, and the 15 th day of the 
following March Mrs. Rhees returned to her Philadelphia 
home, that she might enjoy the privileges of her dearly 
loved Baptist church, removing even her husband's re- 
mains in 1807. Her stay in Somerset had, however, 
been long enough to knit in thorough friendship her 
heart and that of Mrs. Mary Ogle, wife of Gen. Alex- 
ander Ogle, a woman of superior heart and mind, be- 
longing to the first walks of society. Neither the General 
nor his wife were members of any church. Correspond- 
ence with Mrs. Rhees kept the flame of friendship burn- 
ing brightly. When Gen. Ogle went to Lancaster to 
sit in the legislative session of 18 11 and 18 12, Mrs. Ogle 
accompanied him that she might visit Mrs. Rhees. 
Much of the time in Philadelphia was spent in religious 
conversation and attendance at various churches. One 
Sunday, while attending Baptist church, Mary Ogle 
heard Dr. Haughton tell the story of William Carey in 
India. Her heart not only burned for foreign mission- 
aries and their cause, but also for her own mountain 



4 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

village. When at the conclusion of an earnest appeal 
the plate was passed, amid blinding tears and a fervent 
prayer for ' ' benighted Somerset " she laid on it her only 
remaining dollar, the intended passage money to Lan- 
caster. She called to the Lord in the words of Moses, 
4 ' If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up 
hence." On another occasion she heard Dr. Birch, a 
Presbyterian minister, on " Christian Fellowship and 
Charity." It proved to be manna indeed to her hun- 
gry soul. It was like Elijah's "meat," in the strength 
of which she marched so many a weary mile of her 
lonely pilgrimage. She who might have been a star in 
society preferred to shine for the Lord. The Scripture 
was true again, " Mary hath chosen the better part." 
But the effect all this had on her mind and heart may 
be best seen from a letter she addressed to Mrs. Rhees 
after her arrival at Lancaster. This letter will also help 
to make us better acquainted with our heroine : 

Lancaster, March i, 1812. 

Dear Friend: — \ must inform you that I arrived safe at Lancas- 
ter in company with five gentlemen, all of whom were polite and agree- 
able. One of them, Mr. Eringhouse, introduced me before I took the 
stage, and he was very attentive, which made it pleasant traveling. But 
believe me, my friend, that I came many a mile and was scarcely sensi- 
ble of any person's being in the stage but myself; my mind was so 
wholly occupied in contemplation on the goodness of God and the fel- 
lowship of Christians that I think it was the happiest day of my life. I 
hope that I realize something of the words that were so powerfully im- 
pressed on my mind in Mr. Birch's church. There is not anything that 
troubles my mind but the forlorn state of Somerset with respect to the 
gospel. Tell Dr. Holcombe that when he petitions Him who has all 
power in heaven and on earth, not to forget our solitary place. 

But methinks I see Mrs. Hallman smiling and saying that Mrs. 
Ogle has become very partial in her desires. Truth, my dear friend, I 
feel more immediately interested for Somerset, but my heart flows with 
warm affection to all the human family, not willing that any shoul d per 



THE PLACE AND THE GERM. 



5 



ish but all should come to repentance. But, oh, we are unworthy 
creatures ! I can speak for myself as an individual, that I am not wor- 
thy of the least of His divine favors; yet He has in many instances 
made His goodness to pass before me and proclaimed Himself the Lord 
merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth! 

I have not seen any of the ladies of Lancaster yet, therefore I can 
not tell you any news from this place. 

I often feel a disposition to cry out, "Oh, that it were with me as 
m the past when I went with my friends to the house of God and sat 
under the droppings of His sanctuary." But I must return to my na- 
five land. Oh, that the Lord would plant in that wilderness His cedar 
tree, the oil and myrtle tree, and His Birch-tree together. Oh, that He 
would make that parched ground become as a pool of water ; then the 
desert would rejoice and blossom as the rose. 

But I fear my dear friend will think that I discover by my letter a 
mind not reconciled to our heavenly Father's will. But do not think 
so ; for when I look at my unworthiness and the loving kindness of the 
Lord to me, I can not refrain to shed tears of joy and gratitude, and to 
say with the Psalmist, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all 
His benefits." But I trust you have not forgotten the Doctor's grand 
discourse on Christian fellowship and charity — that we should bear with 
one another in love. It has been observed by an elegant writer that 
"love is the holy element of heaven, the air that angels breathe as 
from the throne of God it issues forth, for God is love." 

Oh, that the love of Christ may constrain us at all times to talk 
and act as becomes the blessed gospel, is the sincere wish of your friend, 

Mary Ogle. 

If it be asked why such a religious nature as hers 
had not long ere this led Mary Ogle to unite with some 
one of the religious bodies of Somerset, the answer 
must be, they were not sufficiently religious to meet the 
wants of her craving soul. This can be clearly gathered 
from the foregoing letter, and may be further illustrated 
by a fact or two. In 1810 the Reformed and the Pres- 
byterians built a union church by lottery. The laws of 
the commonwealth not only sanctioned such procedure, 
but often a liberal per cent, was paid to the governor 
for permitting a special act granting a lottery, and an- 



O TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH 

other liberal per cent, frequently went into the pockets 
of the managers. Even so late as 1818 another lottery- 
was gotten up in Somerset to build another church, and 
some tickets were already sold, when the repealing of 
the law put a sudden end to the business, the public 
conscience being of finer moral quality than that of in- 
dividual churches. Moreover, Mrs. Ogle's constant 
study of the Bible had led her to views of doctrine and 
duty that none of the then existent Somerset churches 
could satisfy. Her stay at Lancaster during the spring 
of 181 2 afforded her another opportunity to go through 
the Bible again and settle new points of inquiry. She 
would have been immersed while at Philadelphia, but 
her Baptistic leanings did not make the matter so imper- 
ative. Besides, it was at Somerset that she had so long 
lived apart from public acknowledgment of Christ that 
she believed it her duty to honor Him there, and so, if 
possible, by her example lead her neighbors and com- 
panions to a like obedience. Accordingly her friends 
were notified of her changed purpose in life, and Elder 
William Brownfield, a Baptist minister of Uniontown, 
was invited to officiate at her formal espousal to Christ. 
In the summer of 181 2 " buried with Christ in baptism" 
was still an unseen thing in Somerset. The news that 
she who had been the belle and beauty of Bedford 
county, and was now the first lady in Somerset, was to 
be immersed brought all the village to the old stone mill, 
one and a half miles south of town. "Aunt Char- 
lotte," the now widowed daughter-in-law of Mary Ogle, 
a surviving charter member of the Church of Christ, 
then twelve years old, was one of the spectators on 
that memorable occasion. 

The summer following the above event, namely, in 



THE PLACE AND THE GERM. 7 

1813, Prof. Charles Wheeler was called to immerse an- 
other lady of high social standing, the wife of a leading 
lawyer, Mrs. Mary Morrison. In intellectual ability 
she was not the equal of Mary Ogle, but her superior, 
if possible, in the adornments of a meek and quiet 
spirit. These two, like every new-born soul, longed 
to serve their Master and to be a blessing to their fel- 
low-travelers to death and the judgment. They urged 
all whom they could to gather regularly on Lord's day 
in Abraham Morrison's law-office, which afterwards 
passed into the hands of the Ogles, and stood where 
F. J. Kooser's present law-office stands. For many 
years to come this brick building was destined to be a 
sanctuary as well as the abode of civil justice. With 
all who attended, these women read the Holy Script- 
ures and talked of duty and the life to come. No 
matter who was there, whether only those from the 
humbler walks of life or learned lawyers, they neglected 
not the public service of prayer. A volume of " Vil- 
lage Sermons " was secured, and a sermon devoutly and 
regularly read, supplemented by the fervent singing of 
Dr. Watt's Psalms and Hymns. 

Later on, perhaps in 1815, this forenoon service was 
supplemented by an afternoon Sunday-school, con- 
ducted by Mary Ogle and the wife of a Presbyterian 
minister by the name of Ross. It was the first one in 
the county, and its lineal descendant may be seen to 
this day in the Church of Christ of Somerset, the 
strongest body of the kind in town. 

In all this work the two Marys found an efficient 
helper in another woman of the same given name, Mrs. 
Mary T. Graft. She belonged to a humbler station in 
life and had not the same judiciousness of judgment or 



8 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

fineness of spiritual discernment, but was active, am- 
bitious, even officious, and in point of ability ranked 
between the other two. She had been sprinkled in 
infancy and regarded that sufficient, especially since it 
was supplemented by a subsequent "Christian experi- 
ence." When approached on the matter by the others, 
she would reply : "I grant you that the Scriptures 
teach ' burial ' in baptism, which is immersion ; but 
to attend to it at this late day with all my Christian ex- 
perience as proof of divine acceptance, would be like 
a man who, toward evening of a day's journey, remem- 
bering that he had forgotten to eat breakfast should 
then seriously turn back to the inn of the previous 
night to supply the omission. I have had no fair 
breakfast, it is true, but I '11 travel on my dinner." 



CHAPTER II. 



A HAPPY UNION. 

Notwithstanding the church-like home and activities 
already mentioned, constantly supplemented by per- 
sonal house to house visitation, the three Marys longed 
for the living voice of a regular minister. Besides, 
their ceaseless energy soon created frequent demands 
for the administration of the ordinance of baptism. 
This involved traveling expenses and the "hire" of 
which the Bible taught them the laborer was worthy. 
But more especially were there charitable fields which 
they wished to enter. The financial problem thus 
early appealed to their woman wit for solution, with 
the following result : 

Rules of a Female Society for the Use of the Gospel. 

Preamble. — We believe that a Female Society as a charitable in- 
stitution, with the Divine blessing, may be rendered very useful. We 
hope that every member of the Society will feel herself bound in grat- 
itude to contribute to the support of it as God shall prosper her, and 
so be exercising herself, not only in her temporal, but spiritual things, 
that as many here as fear the Lord may be enabled to speak often one to 
another. We pray that there may be no distinction of wise and foolish 
virgins among us, but that each of us may be found with the oil of 
love in our vessels when the voice of the heavenly Bridegroom is heard; 

9 



10 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

that the union which is now commenced neither life nor death, things 
present nor things to come, shall be able to dissolve, but that eternity 
may find us what we are now desirous to be — A Happy Union. 

Rule ist. — This Society shall assemble once a month at some con- 
venient place, to see to the pecuniary concerns of the Society. 

Rule 2nd. — Any female friend having a desire to join the Society 
will be welcome to attend the meeting. The Rules of the Society shall 
be read to her. If they meet her approbation it is expected she will 
sign her name to them and pay her subscription, which is not limited, 
once every month. 

Rule jd. — A President, Treasurer and Secretary shall be appointed 
by the Society with a Committee of four members, whose business it 
shall be to distribute the money with prudence, affection and sym- 
pathy. 

Rule 4th. — At each meeting of business the Committee shall lay 
before the Society their transactions of the month and receive further 
instructions. 

No money will be distributed except in very particular cases, of 
which the Committee will be the competent judge. 

Rule jtli. — No member shall intentionally cause dissensions in the 
Society, or make known the private transactions thereof to such as are 
notmembers. 

Rule 6th.— In case any member has any difficulty that may oppress 
her mind relative to the Society, or any kind of information that may 
be of use to the Society, it is expected that at the meeting for business 
she will fully make it known. And should such occur immediately 
after a meeting, the report shall be made to the Committee, who are 
authorized to act. 

Rule yth. — We repeat part of which we have subscribed to : It is 
hoped that mutual love and Christian charity will pervade the bosom 
of every member, that as a Society they may let their light shine before 
men and glorify God. 

The plan of the foregoing belongs to Mary Ogle, 
and is largely due to her Philadelphia visit, already 
mentioned, though the tattered copy, with sundry 



A HAPPY UNION. II 

lacunce, now doing service is in the handwriting of that 
eager scribe, Mary T. Graft. 

Of course, many became members of this " So- 
ciety " who could not be numbered among li the 
saints," yet who devoutly wished well to Zion. Be- 
sides, it was an honor not to be lightly foregone to 
follow such leaders. How this Society prospered, and 
how the gospel leaven worked in the Somerset meal is 
best set forth by an extract from a letter under date of 
April 30th, 1 8 14, by Mary Ogle to Elder Charles 
Wheeler, then of Brownsville: 

Our little Society consists at present of eighteen members, many 
of whom are under great exercise of mind about religion. And, as for 
myself, I have experienced such intellectual pleasure, both in reading 
the Scriptures and meditating on the adorable goodness and mercy of 
God, that, if it was not for the painful recollection that many of my 
dear friends and neighbors are yet in the darkness, I could have ex- 
pressed my own feelings in the beautiful lines of the poet when he 
said : 

In desert woods, with Thee, my God, 
Where human footsteps never trod, 

How happy could I be ! 
Thou, my repose from care ; my light 
Amid the darkness of the night ; 

In solitude my company." 

The letter was a request to the Professor to come to 
Somerset and render service in baptizing some ready 
candidates, which, owing to the claims of his school, he 
could not do, and so he sent Elder Patton, who was 
about to visit the Jersey Church. On similar occasions 
Elder James Estep, who also practiced medicine at Mt. 
Pleasant, was called here. 

In the latter part of 18 14, or the early part of 
181 5, Dr. John Cox, of Philadelphia, had gone West 



12 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

to look up a new location and was returning by way of 
Somerset. He put up for the night at Captain Web- 
ster's tavern, and with a letter of introduction from 
Mrs. Rhees made a hasty evening call on Mrs. Ogle. 
After his return to the hotel, Mary Ogle called on 
Mary Morrison and they on Mary T. Graft, who had 
already retired for the night, and told her that there 
was a Baptist minister in town, who would depart for 
Philadelphia at early dawn. 

"Can we not devise some way," said they, " to 
detain him for a sermon ? " 

"Go home," answered Mrs. Graft, "and rest as- 
sured that he will stay." 

Without knowing her plan they went home, trusting 
to her eccentricity and to the good will of Providence. 

In the darkness, which is said to be thickest just 
before day, a wrapped female figure, bearing a lantern, 
might have been seen approaching the hotel, where 
already a saddled horse was tied to a post, and a small 
group of men stood in hasty conversation. 

"Is Mr. Cox here ? " said the approaching figure. 

" Here I am," said he, stepping forth. 

" I have a message for you from the Lord," was 
the reply. "You are to stay in Somerset and preach 
next Sunday. Go to Gen. Ogle's for entertainment. '' 

Suddenly as Elijah from the presence of Ahab she 
then disappeared. Elder Cox had his horse restabled 
and stood, saddle-bags in hand, on the steps of Gen. 
Ogle's as they arose with the dawn of day, and, in 
answer to their surprised looks, related his call to preach 
in Somerset. 

This affair led to his early removal to the borough 
of Somerset, where he supported himself and family in 



A HAPPY UNION. 1 3 

part by making cigars, and preached a share of his time 
till the spring of 1817, when he located on a farm in 
Milford (now Middle Creek) township, a mile east of 
New Lexington, and nearer to the Jersey Church, 
where, on Saturday, April 5th, he deposited his letter 
and that of his wife, Sarah, and preached for them on 
alternate Sundays. 



CHAPTER III. 

WAS IT A BAPTIST CHURCH ? 

The weekly religious meetings, the Sunday-school, 
and the monthly gatherings and constant beneficial 
workings of the "Happy Union," attracted considera- 
ble attention in and about Somerset, and were numer- 
ously attended ; but male conversions were few and 
came late. The burden of toil was confined to female 
hands, though the good will of interested husbands and 
other male friends was not wanting. Chiefly, however, 
the "three Marys," as they are known near and far, 
and of whom much more will be said some chapters 
later, were conspicuous in ceaseless, loving endeavor. 
After a while they were aided by John Hollis, a saddle- 
tree maker by trade, and religiously a rousing Methodist, 
whose private devotions, conducted in his stable, could 
be heard squares away. At this time there was only 
one other Methodist in the place, an old lady known as 
' ' Mother Armstrong. " She and John were not enough 
to constitute a church, so he sought the above alliance 
and proved to be a " powerful " help in the conduction 
of religious services. During the ministry of Dr. Cox, 
Jacob Graft, husband of Mary T., applied for baptism 



WAS IT A BAPTIST CHURCH ? I 5 

— the first male convert — and with him his wife went 
back for her "breakfast" and found it by no means a 
hindrance to progress in travel. She had been slow to 
learn that the truest progression is retrogression to 
scriptural methods and ordinances, but she enjoyed the 
lesson. In praying for her husband she converted her- 
self. Perhaps, too, she had been reading the fourth 
chapter of Leviticus and found that even a Jew had to 
correct past mistakes, however honestly made, and that 
not to do so becomes damnable sin. 

Mr. Graft was emphatically a child of the mountains. 
The pack-saddle, on which exclusively in early days 
goods were transported from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, 
was the seat in his temple of learning, and rugged na- 
ture was his open book. He first, and for many years, 
carried the U. S. mail between the above points over 
the mountains, facing wild animals and all kinds of 
weather, and once having both horse and mail swept 
away from under him by a mountain torrent. Though 
unable to read, he was a man of remarkably good sense 
and sound judgment. When the Jersey Church, in 
July, 1 8 19, deemed it necessary to call a council from 
abroad to sit in judgment on Dr. Cox, Jacob Graft was 
considered fit to be associated with such men as Elder 
James Fry, of Big Redstone, and Dr. James Estep, of 
Mt. Pleasant. He lived till November, 1868, and those 
who knew him best thought the following inscription 
appropriate for his headstone : ' ' Blessed are the pure 
in heart, for they shall see God." 

In August or September, 18 17, Dr. James Estep 
and Prof. Charles Wheeler, the latter then of Washing- 
ton College, a Presbyterian institution, were called to 
constitute a church of immersed believers in Somerset, 



1 6 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

The fact that they were both Baptist ministers, and that 
both before and after this only Baptist ministers 
preached for this church, made it known as the Baptist 
Church, a title by which to this day the general public 
designate the Somerset Disciples of Christ. 

So far as now recollected, the charter members were 
the following twenty-three persons : Mrs. Mary Ogle ; 
Mrs. Mary Morrison ; Mrs. Mary T. Graft and hus- 
band, Jacob ; Isaac Husband and wife, Elizabeth ; 
Samuel Trent ; Miss Catharine Carr ; Jonas Younkin 
and wife, Martha ; George Probst ; Alex. Hunter and 
wife, Nellie ; Mrs. Susan Stewart ; Mrs. Peggie May ; 
Mrs. Betsey Kimberly ; Mrs. Sallie Lichtenberger ; 
Dr. Norman Bruce and wife, Eleanor ; Peter Loehr and 
wife, Barbara ; Jacob Saylor and wife, Nancy. 

All the surrounding Baptist churches for whom the 
above-named ministers labored were not only strongly 
Calvinistic, but uniformly adopted "The Declaration of 
Faith " set forth by the Philadelphia Association, Sept. 
25, 1747. To this day, in fact, throughout this region, 
the adoption of that " Declaration " is insisted on in 
order to admission to baptism and church fellowship. 
While the Declaration seeks to avoid the strong lan- 
guage of v the Westminster Confession of Faith, it yet 
places terms of free human agency and absolute divine 
sovereignty into such relation as to be rather "strong 
meat" for "babes in Christ. " To quote a part of 
Art. IX., italicising one word, we read: 

" We believe that election is the eternal purpose of 
God, according to which he graciously regenerates, 
sanctifies, and saves sinners ; that being perfectly con- 
sistent with the free agency of man, it comprehends all 
the means in connection with the end ; that it is a most 



WAS IT A BAPTIST CHURCH? jy 

glorious display of God's sovereign goodness, being in- 
finitely free, wise, holy, and unchangeable:' 

Art. VII. makes "regeneration" precede "volun- 
tary obedience," "repentance and faith;" and Art. 
XII., "of the harmony of the Law and the Gospel," 
places the law superior to the gospel, making the latter 
only a means of return to the former, and this in the 
face of Paul's declaration, " The law hath been our 
tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified 
by faith" (Gal. hi. 24). 

Such, however, was the recognized standing and 
evident earnest sincerity of the Somerset people, that 
neither at their baptism nor at the constituting of their 
church, though Baptist ministers officiated, was this 
"yoke " put upon them. The unlikeness of such de- 
mands to the primitive simplicity of apostolic practice 
as set forth in Acts of Apostles, in which their diligent 
Bible-reading had schooled them, was so manifest that 
they did not hesitate which to prefer. So deeply had 
they drank at the fountain of religious belief, that they 
could not think of owning a less master than the Christ 
Himself. An incident or two will be of interest. 

Impelled by a strong desire to know more of the 
people with whom she stood so closely related, Mary 
Ogle paid a visit to the Redstone Association in the year 
following her baptism, namely, in 1813. Among the 
messengers from the various churches was a young man 
of commanding presence who arose and read a paper set- 
ting forth that he represented a church whose members 
until recently were all Presbyterians. Their study of 
God's word had opened their eyes "to behold won- 
drous things out of His law," led them closer to the 
Master, and induced them to be "buried with Christ in 



1 8 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

baptism." Having since been strongly urged by neigh- 
boring Baptists, for whom he had occasionally preached, 
to come into the Redstone Association, he was sent 
there to say that they were ready for the relation, pro- 
vided they could enter it as the Lord's freemen and 
without the adoption of a human creed as terms of 
union and communion. Such creeds, for such a pur- 
pose, whether written or unwritten, are in their very 
nature so divisive, that no human creed in Protestant 
Christendom can be found that has not made a division 
for every generation of its existence. Under such a 
creed a change of denomination is only a transfer of fealty 
from one human leader to another. ' 'We at Brush Run, " 
he said, "have passed beyond all that to the unreserved 
acceptance of the divine Christ Himself, whom we will 
follow up to the measure of present and future ability, 
being better pleased with His plain commands than 
with the finest inferences and speculations of all the 
schools. Nor can we be satisfied with a mere cold in- 
tellectual assent to any system of truth, however care- 
fully elaborated, but we hunger and thirst for a direct, 
personal trust in and reliance on Jesus as Leader and 
Lord." 

Words of this tenor so gave Mrs. Ogle her own 
thoughts back again that in her eager joy she asked a 
lady sitting in front of her : ' ' Who is that man who so 
speaks the sentiments of my heart?" "That," said 
the lady addressed, " is my son, Alexander Campbell." 

Mrs. Ogle, however, was pained to see the very man 
who had the year before baptized her, cherishing these 
sentiments, namely, Elder Wm. Brownfield, now leading 
a small opposition against the speaker, who, with his 
church, was nevertheless voted into the Association. 



WAS IT A BAPTIST CHURCH? 1 9 

About the time the Somerset church was constituted, 
some one sent them a copy of the Philadelphia ' ' Dec- 
laration of Faith and Church Covenant." The three 
Marys met to read and consider it. Their discussions 
did not proceed on learned stilts, but their conclusions 
were practical and brief. " There were no such creeds 
in apostolic days, and if we want to be an apostolic 
church we must have none now. Besides, this is a 
man-made thing, and therefore may contain error; the 
Bible, we know, contains none. Its very first Article 
confesses that ' the Holy Bible was written by men di- 
vinely inspired, and is a perfect treasure of heavenly in- 
struction, . . . without any admixture of error, 
and the supreme standard by which all human 
conduct, creeds, and opinions should be tried.' As a 
human creed, one of three things must be true of it: 
it either contains more, or less, or else just what the 
Bible contains. If it contains just what the Bible does, 
we do not need it, for we have the Bible itself; if it 
contains more than the Bible, it contains too much, and 
is one of those additions which will ' add ' unto us ' the 
plagues ' of God's Book ; and if it contains less than 
the Bible, it contains too little, and is such a ' taking 
away ' from God's word as will take away ' our part 
from the tree of life, and out of the holy city ' (Rev. 
xxii. 18, 19). In any case, therefore, we neither need 
it nor dare to adopt it." So saying, they opened the 
stove and sent it as near to heaven as human creeds will 
ever get. 

Visits to the Redstone Association were frequent, if 
not regular, before the establishment of the Somerset 
church. As a creedless church, it was received into 
that Association on the precedent established at the 



20 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

reception cf Brush Run ; and for a time messengers 
were regularly sent, afterwards irregularly, for reasons 
that will appear in the next chapter. Regular Baptist 
ministers preached for Somerset. For the first three 
years Dr. Cox paid them stated visits, and in 1826 and 
1827 Elder Samuel Williams, an unmarried man, was 
located with them, boarding at "Aunty" Graft's, as 
she began to be called, Dr. Cox was succeeded for 
five months by the brilliant but erratic Elder Armor. 
The rest of the intervening time between Cox and Wil- 
liams was improved by such home talent as John Hol- 
lis, who had become a full-fledged immersionist, and 
Samuel Trent, Sr., whose custom was to talk from three 
to four hours, or at least so long as any one would stay 
to listen. This home talent was occasionally supple- 
mented by visiting members, especially Dr. Estep, 
whose medical practice extended even to Somerset. 

On ordinary occasions the meetings were held either 
in the brick office or in some one of the houses near 
town. When, however, Dr. Estep or some other man 
from abroad would come, the Court House was secured 
and filled. On communion occasions, which did not 
often occur, but drew large crowds, they were put to 
their wits. The brick office or a private residence was 
too small and the Court House was not considered suffi- 
ciently sacred. Once at least, shortly after the found- 
ing of the church, the German Reformed meeting-house 
was secured for the purpose. This inconvenience may 
have had something to do with the infrequence of sit- 
ting at the Lord's table. 

Notwithstanding Shakespeare has said — 

" The evil that men do, lives after them ; 
The good is oft interred with their bones," 



WAS IT A BAPTIST CHURCH ? 2 I 

time, like nature, is a great healer. But few and faint 
are the recollections at this day of any frictions in that 
early church. A stray line alludes to some church 
troubles in 1823 that broke out afresh in 1826, and then 
lasted about a year, during which Mary T. Graft became 
somewhat alienated. But the demon Drink always 
works such wicked havoc that it is still clearly remem- 
bered that Wm. Philson, Abram Younkin and Dr. Bruce, 
had to be frequently disciplined for drunkenness, and 
that their copious tears of penitence were never wholly 
able to wash this stain out of their natures. 



CHAPTER IV. 



GENESIS OF LIBERTY. 



Singular to human understanding are the workings 
of Providence. The seed of the kingdom seems to 
ripen in eras as harvest time comes in summer or re- 
freshing showers in time of need. Luther and Zwingli 
were strangers to each other till their established work 
attracted mutual attention. Such an era the nineteenth 
century has proved to be. We are still too close to 
those days to give them proper recognition and credit. 
Without knowledge of one another, in numerous 
quarters throughout Christendom, but especially in the 
western world, singly and in groups, men were break- 
ing away from human creeds as from fences that kept 
up divisions and hemmed in growth, for freedom in 
Christ ; and from the abridgment of divine ordinances, 
to that primitive intactness which alone can show im- 
plicit submission of the human will and wisdom to the 
divine. In so far as these movements will lie directly 
in the way of our tale and help to account for its origin 
and progress, it is perhaps best to notice them now. In 
Johnson's Cyclopaedia, under the title of " Christian 
Connection," is the following paragraph : 



GENESIS OF LIBERTY. 2$ 

"This body originated in three distinct movements, about the be- 
ginning of the present century, in three of the older denominations of 
the United States: (i) in the ' O' Kelly Secession' (1793) from the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. O' Kelly's followers were at first called 
' Republican Methodists,' but afterwards chose the name of ' Christians,' 
and declared the Bible alone to be their rule of faith and church gov- 
ernment. (2) Dr. Abner Jones, of Hartland, Vt., a Baptist, organized 
in 1800 a church which disavowed all creeds and sectarianism, and re- 
ceived the Bible as their only rule. They were joined by many minis- 
ters and others, chiefly of Baptist and Freewill Baptist denominations. 
(3) A body of Presbyterians of Kentucky and Tennessee, who seceded 
in 1801 from the parent church, and in 1803 took the name of Chris- 
tians. The above three bodies were finally united into a ' general con- 
vention,' which meets quadrennially. The churches, however, are in- 
dependent in church government The Christians are 

opposed to infant -baptism, practice immersion in baptism, and are, as a 
general rule, Unitarian in their doctrines." 

Further on it will come into our way to speak again 
of this general body, especially of the Stone branch 
thereof. At present we are only concerned with the 
Providence that seems to have been abroad, and so turn 
to other instances. In the Church of Disciples of New 
York City is a volume entitled, "The First Part of an 
Epistolary Correspondence between Christian Churches 
in America and Europe," published by that church in 
1820. In it is a circular letter to the Churches of Christ 
scattered over the earth, that bears date of March i, 
18 18, and speaks of having been organized over seven 
years before, that is, about 1811. Thus is brought to 
us the knowledge of many such independent churches, 
and at that early day. 

It was in harmony with the general unrest, if we 
may so call these manifest strivings of God's Spirit, 
chiefly received directly and individually through the 
Word, that the three Marys of Somerset worked, un- 
aware for some years that they were in so goodly a 



24 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

company. But just as certainly as the general unrest of 
Europe in the sixteenth century, that gave us Luther, 
Zwingli, Calvin, Knox, and others, had a divine sig- 
nificance, so surely these later, widespread, yet inde- 
pendent, movements were also of God, and we do well, 
by tracing the events, to read His message. " And 
the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." 
It is a new genesis. 

The Redstone Association seems to have been "a 
kingdom divided against itself." It opposed the Bible- 
alone Brush Run Church and yet received it. In 1816, 
at Cross Creek, (now) West Virginia, Dr. Cox, of Som- 
erset, being present, it heard Alexander Campbell's 
famous "Sermon on the Law,"* which was directly 
subversive of Article XII.' of the Philadelphia "Dec- 
laration," and on the other hand they refused to receive 
into the Association the Pittsburgh church, because in 
its letter of application, presented by Thomas Camp- 
bell, it made no mention of subscribing to that confes- 
sion. A few years later that Association received the 
Somerset church without the adoption of a human 
creed, and yet by 1823 the creed spirit had grown so 
strong that there was a secret movement afoot, under 
the leadership of Elder Brownfield, to expel Alexander 
Campbell because of his opposition to human creeds. 
This movement might have succeeded had not Camp- 
bell formed a new church at Wellsburg, Ohio, and gone 
into the more liberal Mahoning Association of Eastern 
Ohio, as Baptist usage gave him the privilege. Camp- 
bell's action had been so recent and so quiet that it was 



= :: Text: "For what the law could not do, in that-it was weak through the 
flesh, God, sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, con- 
demned sin in the flesh." — Rom. viii/3. 



GENESIS OF LIBERTY. 25 

unknown to the leaders of the opposition, who still be- 
lieved him to be a member at Brush Run. When he, 
therefore, appeared at the meeting of the Redstone 
Association as spectator, they at once started the dis- 
cussion of the propriety of receiving, or rather of reject- 
ing, the messengers from Brush Run. The controversy 
ran high, the messengers from Somerset, through their 
leader, Isaac Husband, defending the Bible alone as a 
sufficient creed. The fact at length became known that 
Campbell was not a messenger from Brush Run, but 
belonged to another church and a different Association. 
This brought a sudden truce to all discussion. But 
thenceforth the interest of the Somerset church in that 
Association abated greatly, and the creed spirit grew 
apace. By 1826, matters had come to such a pass that 
at the meeting of the Association at Big Redstone 
(now Browmsville) the Somerset messengers were not 
even granted seats. Elder Brownfield, with his aids, 
had the night before fixed on a high-handed plan of 
action. Out of twenty-four churches, aggregating sev- 
enty-two messengers, they managed to secure ten 
churches, or thirty votes, in the following way: An 
article in the Constitution, which had long been a dead 
letter, required that the yearly letters of the churches 
to the Association should refer to the Philadelphia Con- 
fession of Faith. The ten churches that did this were 
declared to be the Association ; these sat in judgment 
on the remaining fourteen churches, expelling them one 
by one, usually without even a hearing. The Wash- 
ington church, after being called ' ' Arian, Socinian, 
Arminian, Antinomian, and everything that is bad," 
was first expelled ; next came the Maple Creek church, 
with its good Elder Henry Speers ; then Pigeon Creek, 



26 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

with the venerable Elder Luce ; and further down the 
list came Somerset. 

The excommunicated churches met at a house half 
a mile or so distant, and asked Alexander Campbell, 
who had been sent by the Mahoning to the Redstone 
Association as corresponding messenger, to preach for 
them. After Campbell left, they agreed to go home to 
report to the churches that had sent them, and to pro- 
pose to them to send messengers to Washington, Penn- 
sylvania, on the Saturday preceding the second Lord's 
day in the following November, for the purpose of form- 
ing a new Association. This plan was carried out, and 
the new body was called the Washington Association. 
On the 7th, 8th and 9th of September, 1827, it met 
again at Washington, and Somerset was represented by 
Isaac Husband, Jonas Younkin, John Prinkey and 
Jacob Lichteleiter, who reported four baptized, seven 
dismissed by letter, and forty members. At that meet- 
ing Thomas Campbell and Williams were appointed as 
Evangelists for the Association, to travel among its 
churches and hold meetings. A meeting was appointed 
for Somerset on the second Lord's day in October 
following. 



CHAPTER V. 

FREEDOM BORN. 

History is grandest and most valuable as it marks 
the growth of thought. The kingdom of mind is su- 
perior to the kingdom of matter, " As a man reckon- 
eth within himself, so is he." " Out of the heart are 
the issues of life." And ''those," said Colton, "who 
have finished by making all others think with them, 
have usually been those who began by daring to think 
with themselves." 

In order to an intelligent comprehension of the 
next important fact in the history of Somerset, it will 
be necessary to glance at the moral causes that pro- 
duced it. To these, then, let us pay first attention. 

Thomas Campbell was a highly accomplished Se- 
ceder (Presbyterian) minister of Northern Ireland. 
His heart had sickened at the havoc' wrought by sec- 
tarianism in the old country. When, in quest of health, 
he came to this country in 1807 and was assigned work 
in Washington county, Pennsylvania, the pain grew 
deeper to find matters still worse in this ' ' land of the 
free." In his prayerful casting about for a remedy, he 
uttered in writing this germinal truth: 

27 



28 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

The Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, 
and constitutionally one. . . . There ought to be no 
schisms, no uncharitable divisions among them. They ought to re- 
ceive each other as Christ Jesus hath also received them, to the glory 
of God. And for this purpose they ought to walk by the same rule, 
to mind and speak the same thing ; and to be perfectly joined together 
in the same mind, and in the same judgment. 

" In order to this, nothing ought to be inculcated upon Christians 
as articles of faith ; nor required of them as terms of communion, but 
what is expressly taught and enjoined upon them in the word of God. Nor 
ought anything to be admitted, as of Divine obligation, in their church 
constitution and managements, but what is expressly enjoined by the 
authority of our Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles upon the New 
Testament Church; either in express terms or by approved precedent.'''' 
— Life of Thomas Campbell, pp. 48, 49. 

It was this principle, so manifestly true, that led 
him and his gifted son, Alexander, a few years after, to 
discard infant baptism as neither commanded by Christ 
nor practiced by His apostles, and compelled them, ac- 
credited Presbyterian ministers though they were, to be 
" buried with Christ in baptism." 

Among the Baptists, with whom we have already 
seen they came into relation, Alexander Campbell was 
twice called on to defend believers' immersion in public 
debate with Presbyterians. His second work of the 
kind was with Dr. W. L. McCalla, at Washington, 
Kentucky, Oct. 15-23, 1823, when he uttered the fol- 
lowing : 

" I know it will be said that I have affirmed that baptism 'saves 
tts,' that it 'washes away sins.'' Well, Peter and Paul have said so be- 
fore me. If it was not criminal in them to say so, it can not be crimi- 
nal in me. When Ananias said unto Paul, ' arise, and be baptized, 
and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord,' I suppose 
Paul believed him, and arose, and was baptized, and washed away his 
sins. When he was baptized he must have believed that his sins were 
now washed away, in some sense, that they were not before. For if 
his sins had been already in every sense washed away, Ananias' address 



FREEDOM BORN. 2Q 

would have led him into a mistaken view of himself; both before, and 
after baptism. Now we confess that the blood of Jesus Christ alone 
cleanses us from all sins. Even this, however, is a metaphorical expres- 
sion. The efficacy of His blood springs from His own dignity, and 
from the appointment of His Father. The blood of Christ, then, really 
cleanses us who believe from all sins. Behold the goodness of God in 
giving us a formal proof and token of it, by ordaining a baptism ex- 
pressly ' for the remission of sins' I The water of baptism, then, form- 
ally washes away our sins. The blood of Christ really washes away our 
sins. Paul's sins were really pardoned when he believed, yet he had no 
solemn //^^ of the fact, no formal acquittal, no formal purgation of his 
sins, until he washes them away in the water of baptism. 

" To every believer therefore, baptism is a formal and personal re- 
mission, or purgation of sins. The believer never has his sins formally 
washed away or remitted until he is baptized. The water has no 
efficacy but what God's appointment gives it, and He has made it suf- 
ficient for this purpose. The value and importance of baptism 
appears from this view of it. It also accounts for baptism being called 
the washing of regeneration. It shows us a good and valid reason for 
the dispatch with which this ordinance was administered in the primi- 
tive church. The believers did not lose a moment in obtaining the re- 
mission of their sins. Paul tarried three days after he believed, which 
was the longest delay recorded in the New Testament. The reason of 
this delay was the wonderful accompaniments of his conversion and 
preparation for the apostolic office. He was blind three days, scales 
fell from his eyes, he arose then forthwith and was baptized. The 
three thousand who first believed, on the selfsame day were baptized 
for the remission of their sins Yea, even the Jailer and his house 
would not wait till daylight, but the ' same hour of the night, in which he 
believed, he and all his were baptized: I say, this view of baptism 
accounts for all these otherwise unaccountable circumstances. It was 
this view of baptism misapplied that originated infant baptism. The 
first errorists on this subject argued that if baptism was so necessary 
for the remission of sins, it should be administered to infants whom 
they represented as in great need of it on account of their ' original 
sin.' Affectionate parents, "believing their children to be guilty of 
1 original sin,'' were easily persuaded to have their infants baptized for 
the remission of ' original sin,' not for washing away sins actually com- 
mitted." — Pp. 134-136. 

"My Baptist brethren, as well as the Paido-baptist brotherhood, I 
humbly conceive, require to be admonished on this point. You have 



30 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

been, some of you no doubt, too diffident in asserting this grand import 
of baptism, in urging an immediate submission to this sacred and 
gracious ordinance, lest your brethren should say that you make every- 
thing of baptism; that you make it essential to salvation. Tell them 
you make nothing essential to Salvation but the blood of Christ, but 
that had made baptism essential to their formal forgiveness in this life, 
to their admission into His kingdom on earth. Tell them that God has 
made it essential to their happiness, that they should have a pledge on 
His part, in this life, an assurance in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Spirit, of their actual pardon, of the remission of 
their sins, and that this assurance is baptism. Tell the disciples to rise 
in haste and be baptized, and ' wash away their sins, calling on the name 
of the Lord.'"— P. 144. 

With respect to the test to which candidates for 
baptism were subjected in apostolic times, Alexander 
Campbell wrote in the Christian Baptist for March 
1825, p. 140, as follows: 

"When any person desired admission into the kingdom, he was 
only asked what he thought of the King. 'Do you believe in 
your heart that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Lord of all? ' was 
the whole of apostolic requirement. If the candidate for admission re- 
plied in the affirmative — if he declared his hearty conviction of this 
fact — no other interrogation was proposed. They took him on his 
solemn declaration of this belief, whether Jew or Gentile, without a 
single demur. He was forthwith naturalized, and formally declared to 
be a citizen of the kingdom of the Messiah. In the act of naturaliza- 
tion which was performed by means of water, he abjured or renounced 
spiritual allegiance to any other prince, potentate, pontiff, or prophet, 
than Jesus the Lord." 

A Scotchman, born about the time Somerset county 
was organized, thoroughly educated at Edinburgh Uni- 
versity, came to this country and was immersed at Pitts- 
burgh about the time the Somerset Baptist Church was 
constituted. The Mahoning Association, meeting in 
1827 at New Lisbon, Ohio, called this man to be its 
traveling Evangelist. Walter Scott, for this was his 



FREEDOM BORN. 3 1 

name, had been an interested reader of Campbell, and 
firmly believed the foregoing extracts to be God's 
truth. Such a turning to the Lord as blessed His work 
on the Western Reserve had never been seen in 
modern days. Instead of the usual long pleading with 
God to "come and bless these waiting souls," as 
though He who gave His divine Son to die for trans- 
gressors were less willing to bless than sinners were 
ready to be blessed, men rejoiced in the new-found 
readiness of God and crowded to His throne of open 
mercy by the score. Even whole churches threw their 
man-made methods to the dogs and planted themselves 
on this Pentecostal method with its Pentecostal results. 
It was the dawn of a new era — the birth of a nation in 
a day. When the Campbells heard of it, they were 
not only astonished beyond measure at the strange 
news, but they arranged that Thomas Campbell and his 
son Archibald should go and investigate the matter lest 
some new heresy should be propagated. With all pos- 
sible dispatch and anxious forebodings, father and son 
hastened to the scene of action. When they saw the 
work, it happened unto them as unto the newly 
anointed Saul of old as he met "a band of prophets 
coming down from the high place with a psaltery, and a 
timbrel, and a pipe, and a harp ;" it was the music of 
heaven, and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon 
them, and they too prophesied with them for two 
months. It was a wonderful work of God. In it was 
swallowed up not only the Mahoning Association 
from the Ohio to Lake Erie, but it has since spread 
over nearly all the civilized world, and is now success- 
fully ' ' seeking the heathen for an inheritance and the 
utmost parts of the earth for its possession." 



32 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

Enthused with this spirit, Thomas and Archibald 
Campbell, in the following year, after a mid-summer 
tour through the Reserve, turned their faces eastward. 
Their course is thus briefly noted in the Life of Thomas 
Campbell, pages 139 and 140: 

" In the fall of 1828, they also made a preaching excursion as far as 
Somerset County, Pennsylvania; visited a few churches on the way in 
the counties of Washington, Fayette, and Westmoreland. Found also a 
small church in the town of Somerset, mostly composed of sisters, who 
were remarkable for their intelligence and zeal in the gospel. During 
their stay of some three weeks, some thirty of the most intelligent of 
its citizens, most of the members of the bar, a physician and other lit- 
erary gentlemen became obedient to the faith. The town was indeed 
remarkable for the general intelligence, candor, and urbanity of its 
citizens, and as unusually free from that strong religious prejudice 
that always opposes what is not in accordance with one's church. 
Hence the readiness with which they received the gospel." 



CHAPTER VI. 



REORGANIZATION. 



Our last chapter brought us to an event that needs 
ampler detail. The precise change of base on the part 
of a church already so un-Baptistic must be more 
closely defined. 

i. With a clearer vision than ever before they now 
saw the folly and sinfulness of human creeds. A creed 
as a bond of union and communion, that is, as a law by 
which members are received and expelled, as a funda- 
mental, constitutional or organic document, dare not be 
human if the superstructure reared on it is to be divine. 
To say, as such a document implies, that the Script- 
ures have not "thoroughly furnished" us in this re- 
spect, is to charge Christ with a grave and fatal omis- 
sion ; namely, with the organization of a new govern- 
ment without a fundamental law, or the building of a 
church having no foundation save what shifting sands 
human chance may anon wash under it and anon away. 
It is this folly that has made, in history so many build- 
ing spots for so many different sects, ephemeral and 
"foolish " as the "sand " on which they built. More 



34 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

than ever, Somerset was now determined to avoid this 
sinful absurdity. 

2. As but one building can be erected on one foun- 
dation, provided it is as broad and no broader than that 
foundation, they proposed henceforth to stand for the 
unity of all of Christ's followers. 

3. The Divine Creed, the Scriptural constitution, 
they now saw to be that, and only that, which the 
Lord Himself had expressly laid down as such. This 
He did in two explicit announcements : one setting 
forth the fundamental truth or fact, and the other de- 
claring the fundamental practice or way to appropriate 
that fact. 

(1.) When Peter answered, "Thou art the Christ, the 
Son of the living God," Jesus said : " Upon this rock 
I will build my church " (Matt. xvi. 16). Now that on 
which one builds is fundamental, or, to use a govern- 
mental expression, constitutional. Hence Paul says of 
this fact, ' ' Other foundation can no man lay than that 
which is laid, which is Jesus Christ " (I. Cor. iii. 11). 
In Old Testament history there had been many christed 
(i. e., anointed) ones, as prophets, priests and kings, 
but Jesus is by preeminence tke anointed prophet, 
priest and king — and, as ". the Son of the living God," 
the divine Prophet, the divine Priest, the divine King. 
Who can confess allegiance to a greater ? Who dare 
confess to a less? At any rate, this is "the wisdom 
of God." All else is human folly. 

(2.) By way of practice Jesus lays down this funda- 
mental law : " He that believeth and is baptized shall 
be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned" 
(Mark. xvi. 16). Compare also Matt, xxviii. 19, and 
Luke xxiv. 46-49. As God receives men on these 



REORGANIZATION. 35 

terms or rejects them for want of compliance, how 
could Somerset now do less or demand more ? 

4. With reference to the afterpart of the Commis- 
sion as given by Matthew (xxviii. 20), " teaching them 
to observe all things whatever I have commanded you," 
they were content to say with Paul, "Whereunto we 
have already attained, let us walk by the same rule " 
(Phil. iii. 16). This avoided enforced conformity and 
left the needed room for normal growth and honest 
differences. 

5. Somerset further recognized the fact that all 
thoughtful students of the Word of God will draw in- 
ferences from what they read, and that these inferences 
will be more or less perfect or imperfect, alike or un- 
like, according to the diligence and ability of each in- 
dividual. Such opinions they looked upon as private 
property. They took Paul's admonition : " Him that 
is weak in the faith receive ye, yet not to doubtful dis- 
putations " (Rom. xiv. 1), and they did not permit such 
matters to mar fellowship. 

6. In this growth even baptism took on a new 
meaning and an immediate use. They noticed that in 
apostolic days this ordinance, evidently because part 
of the Commission, was never delayed, but immedi- 
ately followed the confession of faith in the Divine 
Prophetship, Priesthood and Kingship of Jesus. Hence- 
forward they practiced in accordance with the happy 
discovery. They also noticed that the Scriptures speak 
in the same terms both of the blood of the Redeemer 
and of the baptism He commanded, asserting each to 
be "for the remission of sins" (Matt. xxvi. 28 and 
Acts ii. 38). Henceforth, therefore, they held both to 
be for the same purpose, with this natural difference ; 



$6 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

the blood of Jesus creates, procures or furnishes the 
merit by its intrinsic worth, while baptism (with faith 
and repentance), as the divinely appointed means, ap- 
plies or appropriates it unto remission. Therefore since 
the commission, given after the resurrection of Jesus, no 
alien can hope for the remission of sins without this 
appointed way of applying the Saviour's blood. The 
psychological experiences, the emotional on-goings in 
the breast of those seeking the Lord and engendered 
by penitential faith are therefore misinterpreted when 
it is held as evidence of pardon rather than fit prepara- 
tion for baptism in order to remission. 

With this return to apostolic methods they also had 
apostolic success, as was indicated at the end of the 
last chapter. Their numbers were about doubled in 
that single meeting. Future chapters will show yet 
larger growth. 

In closing the last chapter the date given to this 
meeting by Alexander Campbell in his father's me- 
moirs was accepted without question, presuming that 
he wrote with his father's diary before him. Further 
search, however, discovers the following note in the 
Christian Baptist for October, 1829, p. 587, and of 
course written in September: ''Father Campbell, a 
few weeks since, immersed four members of the bar of 
high standing, in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, to- 
gether with several other persons of the same place, of 
much influence in society." In addition to this several 
fine old ladies have quoted their babies born at that 
time, than which there is nothing more certain ; else 
two respectable old family Bibles, since turned up, 
might be adduced with sundry entries, made at the 



REORGANIZATION. 37 

time of marriages, baptism, and — babies again. Bless 
the darlings ; what help they are to history ! 

It is, therefore, clear that Mr. Campbell confounded 
and merged two separate events. In the fall of 1828 
Thomas Campbell came indeed to Somerset, but by 
himself; stayed several months and truly preached the 
new order of things, but with such wonted caution as 
to set the people more to thinking than to acting. 
Just before his departure for home, in the early part of 
October, he baptized Mrs. Charlotte Ogle, the first 
person in this region baptized upon simple confession 
of faith for the remission of sins. There were, how- 
ever, others who even then were very near the king- 
dom. Mrs. Rebecca Forward told Aunt Charlotte, as 
the latter was coming from the water, that she would 
have gone with her were she not waiting for her hus- 
band to join her in this obedience. The state of Mr. 
Forward's mind is thus expressed in a letter directed to 
his wife from the halls of Congress under date of March 
13, 1828: " I have been long anxious that youatleast 
might enjoy the happiness of a religious walk in life. 
For myself, I still seem destined to a want of genuine 
faith and repentance." 

The account that Father Campbell, on his return 
home, gave of this field, made both father and son 
anxious to provide Somerset with the means of pro- 
gress, but for the time failed. In a letter to Mrs. Mary 
Ogle, Oct. 22, 1828, Alexander Campbell said: 

" I have just written this morning to a Brother Bal- 
lantine from England, now living in Philadelphia but 
wishing to move westward, to come and see you at 
Somerset. He is an excellent preacher and teacher of 
the ancient and apostolic doctrine, and wishes a situa- 



38 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

tion for proclaiming the gospel and teaching a classical 
and English school for the support of his family. He 
is a brother of great experience, and has long con- 
tended for the apostolic doctrine and practice. If a 
situation opens for him in your town for this twofold 
purpose, I doubt not that he will be a real acquisition 
to you all and to the place." 

Late in June, 1829, Thomas Campbell, with his son 
Archibald, returned to Somerset, preached a few times, 
and then went to Turkey-Foot to work up an interest in 
the Jersey church. He found them, however, more 
wedded to Calvin and ' ' Baptist usage " than to Jesus and 
His apostles.* He returned in the second week of July 
to Somerset and began his work in earnest. His meet- 
ings, as usual, were circulatory. On Thursday, July 
9th, he preached at Peter J. Loehr's, four miles east of 



*This judgment may sound harsh. Let the following incidents serve in justi- 
fication : Some years earlier, Abram Colborn being chief elder, a Miss Prinkey, 
from a superior family of Milford township, applied for baptism and membership in 
the Jersey Church. The customary "experience," usually required some weeks 
before baptism, was demanded of her. She replied : "That was not the custom of 
Scriptural days. There is no record of any such procedure in Acts of Apostles. 
Neither Christ nor His apostles ever spoke of such a thing. I put my trust in the 
Divine Saviour and wish to put Him on in baptism." At this point Elder Colborn 
cried out, "Away with her! away with her!" This same Colborn, accompanied 
by others of that church, came on a " Sabbath " to Somerset to attend meeting, and 
put up at his usual place, Isaac Husband's. Jacob Creily, a millwright and gen- 
eral mechanical genius, had invented for Husband's use a spinning-jenny of twelve 
spindles. Colborn wished to return that day and yet wanted to see the jenny work 
before going home, but the " Sabbath " stood in the way. Finally his curiosity tri- 
umphed over his scruples and the plain letter of the "law." The jenny was duly 
exhibited ! Some curious extracts could be made from their records. Here are three : 
"August 31, 1793. Church met. Resolved, that not complying with laying on of 
hands on private members be no bar of communion." " Sept. i, 1798. Agreed that 
one query be sent to the Association concerning the laying on of hands." In the 
preliminary statement to the constituting of the church, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 
1775, the matter is put thus : ■' 8thly. We do agree to receive and adopt the Regu- 
lar Confession of Faith as generally expressive of our belief of the Scriptures, 
allowing liberty of conscience to receive members into the church by the laying on 
of the hands with prayer and the right hand of fellowship as a mode of reception 
of baptized persons into the church — that either way shall not be a bar of com- 



REORGANIZATION. 39 

the village. Chauncey Forward did not feel comforta- 
ble about matters, and saddled his horse for a ride to 
Stoystown, ten miles to the north-east ; but somehow 
(how do such things happen ?) he found himself sitting 
in Loehr's house, the most attentive listener of them 
all. When the invitation to come to Christ was given, 
he responded eagerly, followed only too gladly by his 
wife, and also by Mr. and Mrs. Alexander B. Fleming. 
They were all baptized on Friday, July ioth, at the mill 
below town. Mr. Forward's baptism made no little 
stir; for he was a prominent lawyer, had served in both 
houses of the State Legislature, and since 1825 has been 
in the National House of Representatives. Mr. Flem- 
ing was also a lawyer. 

The meeting grew in attendance and in power. The 
Lord's day services were divided between father and 
son, Archibald preaching in the evening. That day 
three other lawyers confessed Christ, namely, Charles 
Ogle, Wm. H. Posthlethwaite, and Horatio N. Weig- 
ley; also, Cephas Gillett, a teacher, and Dr. Norman 
M. Bruce,* together with Miss Jane H. Carson, (after- 
wards Mrs. Posthlethwaite), Miss Julia Weigley, Mrs. 
Emily Ogle, and Mrs. Susan Mong (who died before 
the reorganization). They were baptized, along with 
others, on the next day, at the same paper-mill. Mary 
Ann Posthlethwaite is also remembered as coming in 
during that meeting. 

Notwithstanding the radical doctrinal changes al- 
ready indicated, and the offishness of the Jersey Church, 
the Somerset Church still believed itself to have a place 
among Baptists, or at least did not wish to part com- 

* Mentioned out of place in Chapter III., by the informant's confounding the 
charter lists of 1817 and 1829. William Philson and wife, Agnes, came in the next 
fall. 



40 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

pany with them, and sent messengers to the next 
Washington Association. The young but scholarly 
Wm. H. Posthlethwaite, one of the messengers, wrote 
the annual letter and emphasized with no stint the 
dwarfing nature and hurtfulness of human creeds. 
Traveling Baptist ministers were as welcome as before 
to occupy the Somerset pulpit. Both in 1828 and after 
the above meeting in 1829, Wm. Shadrach, who to this 
day preaches for Baptists in adjoining counties, was 
called in to administer baptism. Whatever may have 
been his views, the candidates understood the ordinance 
to be "for the remission of sins." 

The unfettered position occupied by the Somerset 
Church was constantly bearing the logical fruit of 
steadily bringing them closer to the Saviour and to a 
fuller understanding of God's Word. How could they 
build on the divine Priesthood of Jesus and yet take 
their name from John the Baptist ? Clearly they were 
named after the wrong person and dated from the wrong 
event. The Priesthood of Jesus most assuredly did not 
begin in the days of John the Baptist, for Paul writes : 
"If He (Jesus) were on earth, He would not be a priest 
at all" (Heb. viii. 4). And, "The priesthood being 
changed, there is made of necessity also a change of 
the law " (Heb. vii. 12). It was now clear to them why 
Jesus charged His disciples to conceal certain matters 
from the public till after His resurrection (Matt. xvi. 20 ; 
xvii. 9, etc.), and why, even after that, he told them 
still to hold back the announcement of the gospel com- 
mission until they "be clothed with power from on 
high" (Luke xxiv. 49). Like the church of Syrian 
Antioch (Acts xi. 26), the Somerset church henceforth 



REORGANIZATION. 4 1 

wished to be known only as Disciples of Christ or 
Christians. 

From their study of Acts xx. 7 and Paul's correc- 
tion of an abuse in I. Cor. xi. 17-34, compared with 
I. Cor. xvi. 2, as well as from what all commentators 
and church historians of note say of the matter, weekly 
communion* seemed to Somerset to have been the 
primitive practice. To this they, therefore, wished to 
conform. That practice once begun, with two or three 
unavoidable exceptions, has not been omitted a single 
Lord's day up to this time. 

Though it is, perhaps, not too much to say that 
there never was a time in the history of the Somerset 
Baptist church when they would not have received the 
hand of fellowship by the more thoughtful Disciples ot 
to-day, yet, to fit themselves the better for their 
changing practice, and to have leaders worthy of their 
growing zeal and capable of teaching so intelligent a 
body, reorganization of their forces seemed a necessity. 

In looking about for an available evangelist to set 
them in scriptural order they corresponded with William 
Ballantine, of Philadelphia. He was a man of superior 
spirituality and a most excellent scholar — excelling es- 
pecially in the Hebrew. To him the Somerset church 
became indebted for several visits of most helpful in- 
struction. His exhaustive treatise on the Eldership 
proved of no little service to incoming officers. Both 
for its spirit of piety and historical value, his letter to 
Wm. H. Posthlethwaite, written from Philadelphia, 
Sept. 8, 1829, is here set down entire: 

" My Dear Brother : — The dispensations of our heavenly Father 
often plainly discover the truth of His Word, that ' It is not in man that 

* " Rule 8th," of the Jersey Church, provided " that communion shall be held 
quarterly." 



42 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

walketh to direct his steps.' I had resolved to be with you on the 
second Lord's Day of this month, but He has laid His hand upon me 
fur wise, and, I trust, gracious ends. I was seized on Thursday morning 
last with something like cholera, which confined me to my bed for two 
days and has prostrated my strength to a considerable degree. I was 
previously engaged to spend the last Lord's Day with the brethren at 
Frankford, and I bless the Lord who so far recovered and strengthened 
me as to preach among them once. 

" When I promised to be with you the next Lord's Day I did not 
use lightness. Nothing should have prevented me but His afflicting 
hand. And I feel, through the stroke of His hand, that my weakness 
will not allow me to push on to fulfill my engagement. My physician 
says that I must not move till I recover a little strength, which he judges 
may be, by the will of the Lord, about the end of this week or the be- 
ginning of the next. 

"It is now my purpose, if the Lord will, to set out from this place 
on Friday morning, the nth hist., and find my way to you by slow de- 
grees. My physician says I must neither travel too early in the morn- 
ing nor too late in the evening. He thinks my complaint was brought 
on by exceeding change of the weather, and therefore I must be cau- 
tious against excessive changes. I trust, however, to be among you on 
Lord's Day, 20th inst., if it be His blessed will; but we are in His 
hand as the clay in the hand of the potter. I am afraid, however, if I 
do reach you then, it will be in much weakness of body as well as of 
mind. I write this in much weakness, but I trust my journey to you, 
by the divine favor, will strengthen me. This is the opinion of my 
physician, else I would not attempt the journey. However, all shall be 
well in whatever way our heavenly Father orders it. 

"Remember me in love to all the brethren. Continue instant in 
prayer. In your church assemblies read and study the sacred Script- 
ures and exhort one another; and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ 
be with you. 

" Yours in hope of a glorious resurrection, 

"William Ballantine." 

From this it seems that September 13th was the day 
set for the reorganization, but owing to providential 
delay it was not accomplished till the 20th of Septem- 
ber, 1829. 

The officers selected and ordained were the follow- 



REORGANIZATION. 43 

ing: Elders — Chauncey Forward, who died October 9, 
1839, an d Wm. H. Posthlethwaite, who resigned in 
1850 and died July 11, 1879; Deacons — Jacob Graft, 
whose career was briefly sketched in chapter III., and 
Samuel Trent, Sr., who moved to Maryland in 1843 or 
1844. 

The cJiarter members, in addition to those converted 
in the July meeting, were the following from the old or- 
ganization: Mary Ogle, Mary Morrison, MaryT. Graft, 
Jacob Graft, Isaac Husband and wife Elizabeth, Mrs. 
Sarah Lichtenberger (niece of Mary Graft), Misses 
Mary Strain and Kate Carr, intelligent seamstresses, 
Mrs. Susan Stewart, Sallie and David Plowman and Miss 
Eliza Plowman, George Probst and wife, Mrs. Charlotte 
Ogle, Peter J. Loehr and wife Barbara (sister of Char- 
lotte Ogle), Miss Clarissa Loehr, Jonas Younkin and 
wife Martha, Mrs. Eleanor Bruce, Mrs. Julia Johnston, 
Mrs. Katie Tantlinger, Mrs. Nancy Carson (mother of 
Mrs. Posthlethwaite), Mrs. Adeline Stahl and Samuel 
Stahl, Samuel Trent, Sr. , and wife Mary, Alexander 
Hunter, Sr. , and wife Nellie, Jacob Creiley and wife 
Mar)-, Miss Margaret Foust (now Mrs. Scheib, of Pitts- 
burgh, sister to Adeline Stahl), and Mrs. Peggie May. 
There were also others whose names can not now be re- 
called. 

It is thought that the following, immersed by Chaun- 
cey Forward, were also charter members : Samuel 
Huston, Peter Huston and wife Bettie, and John Ham- 
ilton and wife Bettie. 

Barbara Loehr died at Bloomington, Illinois, in 1885. 
Mrs. Emma Husband Lavan (also thought to have been 
a charter member,) died in Jackson county, Illinois, 
January 18, 1866. So far as the writer has been able to 






44 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

learn, Mrs. Margaret Scheib, of Pittsburgh ; Mrs. Jane 
H. Posthlethwaite, of Somerset, who is also one of two 
survivors of the original Sunday-school ; and Aunt 
Charlotte Ogle, of Somerset, are the only charter mem- 
bers still living. The last two are well preserved speci- 
mens of a vigorous old age. Mrs. Posthlethwaite, sev- 
enty-six years old, and tall and light of body, regularly 
attends all the Lord's Day forenoon church services, 
misses but few evening services, is quite regularly at 
prayer-meeting, and constantly busies herself in minis- 
tering to the sick and poor. Aunt Charlotte, present 
at the baptism of Mary Ogle, and aged eighty-five, be- 
ing tall and somewhat stout of body, finds her ankles 
less able than her mind, and so must content herself 
with occasional attendance at church, especially in the 
cold season. Besides keeping pretty well abreast with 
other current literature of the day, she can regularly 
tell you all the good things in the CJiristian Standard 
and the New York Independent. Without the valuable 
assistance of these two ladies, this Tale thus far would 
have been a meager affair. 



CHAPTER VII. 



CHAUNCEY FORWARD. 



Mr. Forward and his labors deserve a much fuller 
notice than can be given here. As the leading man in 
the first Disciple eldership, as efficient pastor at home 
and successful evangelist abroad, he made more Dis- 
ciple history in Somerset County than any other man 
that was ever in it. 

He was born about five years before the close of 
the last century, at Old Granby, Connecticut. His 
mother was a pious Episcopalian — a minister's daugh- 
ter — who imparted her turn of mind and heart to her 
son. About A. d. 1800 the family moved to Aurora, 
Portage County, Ohio. In the course of time Chaun- 
cey attended Jefferson College, at Cannonsburg, Wash- 
ington County, Pennsylvania. Later on he studied 
law with his brother Walter, a leading lawyer of Pitts- 
burgh and afterwards Secretary of the Treasury under 
Tyler. The conscientious thoroughness and method 
with which Chauncey did everything is attested by a 
manuscript law-dictionary, still in existence, drawn with 
a careful hand and embodying the gist of his early 
studies. 



46 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

After having been creditably admitted to the Pitts- 
burgh Bar, Chauncey Forward came to Somerset, in 
18 17, young, ambitious, and of model behavior. He 
rose so rapidly in the esteem of all, that he was chosen 
to, and served in, both branches of the State Legisla- 
ture. In 1825 he filled a vacancy as Representative in 
Congress, and was twice' thereafter returned to the 
same seat, serving till his resignation in 1831. In 
March of the last named year, he was appointed by 
Gov. Wolf to hold the offices pertaining to the sev- 
eral courts of Somerset : Prothonotary, Register, Re- 
corder, Clerk of Orphans' Court, Quarter Sessions, 
Oyer and Terminer, etc., in which he acted till removed 
by Gov. Ritner, in 1836, when he resumed the prac- 
tice of law. And those who knew him best and were 
abundantly able to judge, claimed that he had no su- 
perior in his profession, at least within the Keystone 
State. 

The change from Washington to Somerset came at 
Mr. Forward's own request. He longed to be in posi- 
tion to do more for the Master than Congress made 
possible. Though there is evidence that he was by no 
means idle in his Master's business, yet he wrote to his 
wife a year before his resignation, ' ' I am doing noth- 
ing for the glory of God or my own good." He ac- 
cepted offices at Somerset only because they enabled 
him to preach the gospel without charge ; which he 
did, not only here and throughout the county, but also 
in adjoining counties, and occasionally even in other 
States Somewhere in the early part of the thirties he 
thus visited Aurora, Ohio, and led his sisters into the 
kingdom of God. 

Of course his best efforts were devoted to the 



CHAUNCEY FORWARD. 47 

Somerset church, but often his associate in office, Wm. 
H. Postlethwaite, attended to the home-service while 
he went abroad. Not seldom, especially in later 
years, was the home-service entrusted to wise and ca- 
pable non-officials, but usually under the supervision of 
one of the elders. A few reports, taken from the 
Millennial Harbinger, will give a good idea of the 
growth of the gospel under his labors. 

"Sister Graft, (Feb. Jr. 1832,) amongst other good news from 
Somerset, states : We have comfortable meetings, and much reason to 
give honor, glory, and praises, to the God and Father of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ, for what He has done for us, and is doing 
daily. The first persons our brother Forward [late member of Con- 
gress] immersed were a lawyer and two young ladies. This fall he im- 
mersed another young lawyer, the most promising young man in town. 
He has the humility of a disciple, and promises to be a useful member 
of the church. This fall there have been twenty-seven persons bap- 
tized into the faith, and another last Lord's day. Bro. C. Forward 
exhibits the humility and zeal of a real follower of Him who humbled 
Himself and made Himself of no reputation for our sakes.' [In answer 
to the request of the brethren there, I will try and visit them in May 
or June next. — Editor.]" Vol. iii. p. 140. 



"Somerset, Pa., April 9, 1833. 
" The kingdom of our heavenly Father is moving on in this region, 
from South to North, and from East to West. Although brother For- 
ward has baptized but forty-four persons since January 30, for want of 
help, the authority of our King will be made known, notwithstanding 
all the efforts of the prince of darkness. Bro. Forward was com- 
pelled to go last Lord's day to Westmoreland County to preach to the 
Seceders and Presbyterians, the place I wrote you about last fall. The 
priest rode all the day before to caution his people against going to 
hear the Heretics or Campbellites, or he would session every one. A. 
friend replied that he would soon have to fall to work, as there had 
been already fifty or sixty of his members out to hear the Word of the 
Lord, and that he saw nine persons baptized into Jesus Christ. There 
is no doubt a glorious work begun ! " 



48 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

The several churches organized by Mr. Forward 
used to come, both individually and collectively, to 
Somerset. It was called "going up to Jerusalem." 
There was such a gathering, lasting two or three days, 
in June, 1835, at which thirty-two persons were im- 
mersed. Forward's report of this meeting was lost in 
the Harbinger office. The next month he sent the fol- 
lowing : 

"Somerset, Pa., July 10, 1835. 
"Since I wrote you last, ten persons have made the good confes- 
sion and were baptized into Christ. This makes the late increase of 
our membership here about thirty-seven. Forty have been baptized, 
but three, I think, were from other parts. Prospect of great accession 
still ahead. We are all filled with joy, and walking in the Spirit, as 
we trust, universally. We have a great desire to see our much es- 
teemed Father Campbell. — C. Forward." 

On October 15, 1835, Dr. P. G. Young wrote from 
Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania, and among other things 
says : 

" The number immersed in Somerset County, including those at 
the protracted meeting in the spring, amounts at this time to more than 
a hundred. A number also have been immersed in the adjoining 
county, brought in principally through the instrumentality of brothers 
Forward and Lanphear. Since I engaged in the work, it being a 
month or six weeks, I have immersed twenty-three. The cause of 
truth has suffered much from the misrepresentations of a number of 
itinerant Baptist preachers, who are engaged in travelling through 
Westmoreland, Fayette, Somerset, Cambria, and Indiana counties, not 
to preach the gospel, but to warn people against what they call ' Camp- 
bellism.' " 

"Somerset, Pa., Dec. 5, 1835. 
" I see brother Young has stated the number of baptized at about 
one hundred since our meeting in June. There have been about one 
hundred and forty, and we hope the number will be much increased, 
The prospects, I think, are favorable. — Wm. H. Postlethwaite," 



CHAUNCEY FORWARD. 49 

The first church established by Mr. Forward was 
about four miles south-west of New Centerville (four- 
teen miles in the same direction from Somerset) and 
known as Turkey Foot, or Spruce Creek. This was in 
the fall of 183 1, or possibly not till the spring of 1832. 
Charter members were : Dr. Jonas Younkin and wife, 
John Prinkey and wife, Shaphat Dwire and wife, Jacob 
N. Hartzell and wife, Leonard Harbaugh and wife, 
Joseph Harbaugh, Steward Rowen and wife, Solomon 
Baldwin and wife, Harmon Husband and wife, John 
Graham and wife, Sallie Edwards and son and several 
daughters, together with several others. Dr. Jonas 
Younkin and Harmon Husband were the first elders. 
Both could preach pretty well. Forward visited them 
as often as he could, and so did Wm. H. Postlethwaite. 
Most of the evangelists that came to Somerset also 
took in Turkey-Foot. Under date of May 3d, 1836, 
Elijah Younkin wrote to the Millennial Harbinger as 
follows : 

"The cause of God, like a swift-flowing stream, is hurrying onto 
cover the earth. The disciples in this place number about one hun- 
dred. The opposition from the sects is considerable, but is surpassed by 
the faithfulness of the Christians. Mr. Thomas, an itinerant Baptist 
preacher, made an attack on your Extra on Remission of Sins; but he 
is fallen at the point of the Sword of the Spirit. The disciples in Som- 
erset are walking in love and unity — the prevailing principles among 
Christians. May the Lord bless all His holy children." 

They met for awhile in a shabby log school-house on 
the Turkey-Foot road. Afterwards they built a log 
meeting-house, which is now occupied by the German 
Baptists (Dunkards). After some years Harmon Hus- 
band (father of David Husband, immersed by the au- 
thor, and now preaching at Ashland, Nebraska), moved 



50 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

to Illinois, leaving the church a hundred strong. But 
emigration thinned them rapidly, the reaper Death 
claimed his share, ' ' the beggarly elements of the world" 
devoured others, and drink got the better of the Doc- 
tor, who then went to Iowa for a grave, and so, in the 
latter part of the fifties, the candlestick was removed. 
The light that goes out in this world is darkness forever ! 
An incident respecting Forward, which shows his 
intense interest ill the unsearchable riches of Christ, 
must not here be omitted. On a Saturday, in company 
with the Huston brothers, Samuel and Chambers, he 
had gone to Turkey-Foot and preached at night in the 
house of Sister Sarah Edwards. In response to his earn- 
est invitation six young persons confessed their faith in 
Jesus as the Messiah. Early Sunday morning a large 
crowd gathered at the baptismal stream to witness the 
rite that never grows old. By parental interference, 
common in those days, one young man had been pre- 
vented from joining the rest in outward submission to 
Christ. The baptism of the others over, like John the 
Baptist, Forward took his position on the bank of the 
flowing stream, stood in dripping garments and spoke 
to the multitude of the supreme authority of Christ 
and of man's great need of the Saviour. The man who 
had turned his back on the halls of Congress for wilder- 
ness-opportunities like this forgot the passage of time, 
and tenderly, lovingly, earnestly, talked on and on and 
on. The hour for the ten o'clock service at Kramer's 
school-house was fast approaching, but still Mr. Forward 
spoke of his dear Redeemer. Samuel Huston walked 
before the speaker, took out his watch and held it in 
the preacher's face. A mechanical nod was the only 
answer while the theme grew warmer on the speaker's 



CHAUNCEY FORWARD. 51 

lips. At last Huston seized him by the arm and said, 
"Bro. Forward, you must come. They are waiting at 
the school-house ; finish there." 

Though Shade (now Hooversville) lies eighteen miles 
north-east of Somerset, it was none too far to prevent 
Mr. Forward from paying it frequent visits, often " foot- 
ing" it there on Lord's day mornings in time for forenoon 
service. The Macedonian cry from that quarter was 
raised by Ezra Dunham, who had been discipled else- 
where, and Forward was not the man to hear it in vain. 
There, in the summer or fall of 1833, John Hollis, then 
of Jenner, assisting, Mr. Forward organized a church 
of ten or twelve members. John Birkebile, who after- 
wards moved to Missouri, and Samuel Hunter, who died 
in Iowa, were the first and long-efficient elders. Though 
remote from the Disciple center and the thoroughfare 
of travel, the church increased rapidly in numbers. The 
ministrations of their eldership were often reinforced 
by such traveling evangelists as came to Somerset, as 
well as later on by the settled ministers of Somerset 
and Johnstown. A few others, like Apollos Phinney 
and Wilfing, who can not be traced to Somerset, paid 
them occasional visits. Their- only settled minister from 
abroad was Neal S. McCallum, now of Edinburg, In- 
diana, who resided there and did monthly preaching for 
the two years ending with March, 1884, but served them 
occasionally for two years longer while residing at Ber- 
lin. Before him, at various times and in the order 
named, they had also monthly preaching by L. R. Nor- 
ton, J. B. Pyatt, D. M. Kinter, James Darsie, Edward 
Bevins, E. L. Allen, and M. B. Ryan. Their first 
meeting-house, 30x40, was built in 1856, and though 
still usable, the growth of Hooversville, a mile away 



52 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

and on the railroad, demanded a new house in that cen- 
ter. It was built by Neal S. McCallum, in 1884, and 
dedicated by the author on December 14th of that year. 
Since the summer of 1878 they have had a Sunday- 
school, numbering seventy-five scholars at its best, and 
superintended in succession by D. L. Birkebile, A. B. 
Clark, and N. L. Birkebile. The present elders are 
N. L. Birkebile and G. W. Clark. 

We next find Bro. Forward reaching out in a west- 
erly direction. Scott's or Morrison s School-house , com- 
monly called the Ridge, or Milford Church, and now a 
few miles removed and known as Lawel Hill (post-of- 
fice, Bakersville), is thus spoken of in a report sent to 
the Millennial Harbinger: 

"Somerset County, Dec. 21st, 1838. 
"The congregation which goes by the name of Milford Church, 
about eight miles west of Somerset [now thirteen miles northwest. — 
Author] was organized in the year 1834 upon the principles of the 
ancient gospel, and was gathered together principally by the labors of 
brothers Forward and Young. It numbers at this time twenty-three; 
seven or eight of the number formerly belonged to the Methodist 
church, being the most respectable of their members here, and one of 
them their class-leader. The mother and the mother-in-law of the 
above-mentioned persons and the Methodist preacher made a powerful 
effort to prevent them from obeying the gospel. Several weeks since, 
upon Lord's day, brother Younkin spoke for us, and at the close of the 
meeting the old lady requested to be baptized, stating at the same time 
that she had been a praying woman for upwards of forty years, and a 
member of the Methodist church — but as the Lord required her to be 
baptized for the remission of her sins, she was resolved to obey Him. — 
George Scott." 

At that organization such Somerset brethren as 
Samuel Huston, Wm. H. Postlethwaite and others 
were present. By the laying on. of hands, according to 
apostolic precedent, Wm. Scott was installed as elder, 
and George Scott and Daniel Wright were constituted 



CHAUNCEY FORWARD. 53 

deacons. But as Wm. Scott was of a shrinking, diffi- 
dent nature, his mantle soon fell on George Scott, who 
"gained to himself a good standing and great boldness 
in the faith which is in Christ Jesus." In addition to 
these men and their wives, the following names were 
among the early members : Jesse Moore and wife, Mark 
Ross and wife, William Morrison and wife, Joseph Mor- 
rison, John Morrison and wife and some of their child- 
ren, the Joneses, Miller Stautenhaus, Moses Will and 
wife, and others. 

The Somerset elders and traveling evangelists re- 
membered this church in their ministry. The member- 
ship in its palmiest days bordered on one hundred. Dif- 
ficulties, deaths, and liberal removals disorganized them 
in the neighborhood of i860. A few years later there 
was a re-organization of the remaining forces at Laurel 
Hill, where they have a fair house, about thirty mem- 
bers, and a sad lack of godliness. A few funerals of 
the right persons would be of immense advantage to the 
cause. But, as some one has somewhere said, "It 
'pears like as them as is not wanted here, isn't wanted 
yender. " 

The constant care of the home-church and the guid- 
ance of these three points, all without money and with- 
out price, added to his secular business, if we may call 
that secular which is followed with an eye single to the 
glory of God, — all this made Forward's life a busy one 
indeed. And yet he somehow found time to visit nu- 
merous other points in the county and to make com- 
paratively frequent excursions into adjacent counties 
and even into other States ! 

After this survey of his labors we will be benefited 
by surprising the man in his privacy and getting a 



54 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

glimpse of his inner nature. We are all the more ex^ 
cusable in this by reason of the fact that a few gruml «. 
lers, who know not whereof they affirm, have said that 
our early preachers were mere inconoclasts and lacked 
in vital piety. A letter of Forward's, written with no 
thought of ever meeting the public eye, but in the free 
privacy of loving husband to beloved wife, is happily 
at hand to serve our purpose, though given with much 
reluctance by a devoted daughter : 

"Washington City, December 31, 1830. \ 
Past 10 o'clock, p. m. / 
(l My Dear : — I can not resist the inclination to write you a line 
before I sleep. The new year is just about to be born. I have just 
risen from my devotions where I had a refreshing season. Let us re- 
member we are one year nearer to that awful eternity where we must 
experience weal or woe as our lives have been. Are we one year better 
prepared for the change, or have we not mis-spent much of that 
precious time which God gave for the most valuable of all puprosesf 
When I look back and contemplate the past, I feel self-condemned and 
hence have been for the whole evening cheerless and gloomy. To give 
some consolation by a removal of my great guilt in the sight of heaven 
I have just been praying. A sudden recollection that ' the blood of 
Christ cleanseth from all sin ' has made my heart bound with joy. 
What a glorious and blessed Mediator ! He will not break the bruised 
reed. Why is it that I can not always live in such nearness to Him ? 
My sins — my sins only prevent it. May He of His infinite mercy 
grant that during the year which is about beginning I may begin new 
resolutions to be always confirmed to His holy will. May He 
strengthen me to live a life of true holiness. May His wisdom illumine 
my soul and melt down my cold and lukewarm affections into genuine 
tenderness and love. As Jesus has now renewed peace and pardon to 
my soul, so may I in His strength continue to walk in newness of life. 
I have squandered the treasures committed to my charge ; may I im- 
prove them as a wise steward under the most blessed Master. What 
an unbounded fullness does Jesus possess! How infinitely lovely His 
character ! Where is the blemish in His countenance ? Why should 
He not be esteemed as Chief among ten thousand and altogether 
lovely? Why is it that I am so ungrateful and brutish as to sin against 



CHAUNCEY FORWARD. 55 

the Lord of life and glory? Lord, save me from myself! Let me be 
altogether Thine. 

" 'A Christian dwells like Uriel in the sun : 
Meridian evidence puts doubt tojIigJit 
And ardent hope anticipates the skies ' 

"Ah! what would avail tears of regret for the past? Much. The 
miseries which have flowed from our past sins serve as an awful warn- 
ing for the future. But w hat indeed would avail our regret for the 
past, unless we should most firmly resolve to redeem the time in the 
future ? Nothing. For if past misfortunes have no effect upon our 
future course then indeed our case would be hopeless. Let us there- 
fore redeem the time. Let us therefore cleave to Jesus with full pur- 
pose of heart. To know Him is life eternal. All sublunary things 
will soon vanish from our sight — the places which now know us shall 
shortly know us no more forever. Let us therefore prepare to meet 
our God. Affectionately yours, etc., 

" C. Forward. 

•'Good night. May the Lord watch over your slumbers." 

From this glimpse within, let us turn to behold Mr. 
Forward as he appeared to other eyes. 

Mary T. Graft, who wrote letters to everybody, ad- 
dressed the following to the church on April 13, 1831 : 

11 Mr. Forward is one of the foremost characters in our country, 
and is, in my judgment, worthy of the office (the eldership) you honor 
him with ; I am satisfied that it is wisdom's voice in general, written 
before Him who sees in secret." 

David Younkin, now of Glade and formerly of the 
Ridge, whom Forward immersed over fifty-three years 
ago, writes: 

" That good man, had he lived, I have no doubt, would have revo- 
lutionized this whole country." 

James Darsie sends the following from his diary 
written at Somerset : 

" Bro. Forward was an able minister of the word, and a successful 
evangelist of the Gospel of Christ. As an orator he had no superior, 



56 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

and as a preacher of righteousness he enjoyed the entire confidence of 
the whole community. He also was one of the elders of the church 
and a zealous and indefatigable laborer in the vineyard of the Lord, 
lie died in 1839 and is buried in Somerset. His memory is sacredly 
cherished by the whole church, and his labors doubtless contributed to 
the permanency of the cause in Somerset and throughout the State." 

If the lines of Amelia Webb ever applied to any 
man, they were true of Forward: 

" Such language as his I may never recall, 

But his theme is salvation, salvation to all ; 

And the souls of a thousand in ecstasy hung 

On the manna-like sweetness that dropped from his tongue. 

"Not alone on the ear his eloquence stole, 
But enforced by each gesture it sank to the soul, 
Till it seemed that an angel had brightened the sod, 
And brought to each bosom a message from God." 

This sketch is fittingly closed with the following 
obituary notices : 

•'Somerset, Oct. 16, 1839, 
" I wrote you the third of this month that I expected that our 
dear brother Forward would leave this house of clay soon. So it was . 
the will of our heavenly Father to take him from us, for we were not 
worthy of him. Yes, for our sins he was taken from us to a building 
of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, that he 
may rest from his labors and his works follow him. The mighty man 
is taken from us. The ninth of this month, at four o'clock in the 
morning, he departed. His heart appeared to be breaking for months 
past. During this time his preaching and exhortations, I hope, will 
never be forgotten by his poor friends and the disciples. I hope it is 
all for our good that the Lord has chastised us, and our God and King 
have all the glory. Amen. . 

" Mary T. Graft." 

In the Millennial Harbinger, 1840, p. 47, is the fol- 
lowing, copied from a Somerset paper, and commented 
on by Alexander Campbell : 



CHAUNCEY FORWARD. 



57 



" Died, in this borough, on Wednesday morning last, the 9th of 
October,* of inflammation of the stomach, the Hon. Chauncey 
Forward, aged about 46 years. The death of Mr. Forward is a public 
loss. No man was more highly and universally esteemed in the circle 
of his acquaintances. He has filled several important public trusts, to 
the entire satisfaction of his constituents. He represented the district 
several years in the House of Representatives, and in the Senate of this 
State, and five years in the Congress of the United States. He also 
performed the duties of Prothonotary, Register, Recorder, and Clerk 
of the several Courts of this county for several years, with an ability 
and accuracy that elicited universal praise. As an Attorney-at-Law, 
he stood at the head of one of the most able bars in the interior of 
Pennsylvania. In short, as an officer, a citizen, a gentleman, a hus- 
band, a father, and a friend, he had no superior in this part of the 
State. And what is best of all, he was a faithful and devoted Chris- 
tian. Peace to his ashes !" 

" The above," says Alexander Campbell, who knew him well, " is as 
unexaggerated and unvarnished an obituary notice as I recollect to have 
read for a long time. But if there can be anything better said of a man 
than that he was 'a faithful and devoted Christian,' I would say some- 
thing better still. He was an intelligent, able, and sucsessful preacher 
of the gospel of Christ as delivered to us in the scriptures of truth. 
He resigned his seat in Congress because he thought he could honor 
his Saviour better. by staying at home, than by sitting in deliberation 
upon the temporalities of the nation ; and at the sacrifice of both time 
and money, labored much in the work of the Lord. But, perhaps, 
there is nothing better that can be said of a man than that he was ' a faith- 
ful Christian ;' for a faithful Christian will use all his talents for the 
Lord in the best possible way. We have lost a good and great man ; 
but our loss is temporal — his gain is eternal." 



: The Harbinger, by mistake, says November. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



ELDERS AND DEACONS. 



It is neither necessary, nor, for lack of space, possi- 
ble, to give as full an account of everyone that has fig- 
ured in the official history of the Somerset church as 
has been given of Mr. Forward. All that can be 
attempted here is a succinct chronological statement, 
with a few brief notes, trusting to other connections 
such incidents as may be of special interest. 

Elders. — As already stated, Chauncey Forward, who 
died October 9, 1839, anc * Wm. H. Postlethwaite, who 
resigned late in 1850, and died July 11, 1879, were 
chosen at the organization of the church in 1829 
Samuel Huston, a most efficient and saintly man, who 
died March 17, 1856, followed Forward. J. J. Schell, 
still living, was elected in 1850, before Postlethwaite 
resigned, and, on account of the pressure of his private 
business, tendered his resignation October 14, 1869, 
which was accepted October 28th. Edward Bevins, who 
became an efficient evangelist, was chosen shortly after 
Schell, and resigned July 21, 1870, in order to pay more 
attention to evangelization ; he died a triumphant death 

February 12, 1878, aged sixty-one years. L. R. Nor- 

58 



ELDERS AND DEACONS. 59 

ton, who had previously evangelized with Somerset as 
a center, was chosen to the eldership upon his becom- 
ing a settled minister, in October, 1856; he moved 
away in November, 1858. Henry F. Schell and Peter 
Vogel were elected July 24, 1870. David. Husband, 
who had served several years without ordination, had 
his election re-confirmed at the same time, and these 
three were ordained October 9, 1870. Vogel left Sep- 
tember 25, 1 87 1, David Husband resigned July 15, 
1880, and Henry F. Schell still serves. W. H. Wool- 
ery was elected April 4, 1880, and left in September, 
1882. Milton J. Pritts was chosen February 14, 1886, 
and is to be ordained the first or second Lord's day in 
July. 

Deacons: Jacob Graft, chosen at the organization 
in 1829, served till his death, at ninety-eight, in No- 
vember, 1868. Samuel Trent, Sr., was also chosen at 
the organization and left for Maryland in 1843 or '4. 
Wm. Philson, who became a deacon somewhere in the 
thirties, also left in 1843. Henry Schell (the father) 
moved to Somerset in 1841 and was made a deacon soon 
after; he died in April, 1857. Isaiah Little, chosen 
about 185 1 or '2, moved to Ohio two or three years after- 
wards and preached for the Winebrennarians about Can- 
ton, but in the spring of 1886 cast his lot again with 
with the Disciples, at Mansfield, Ohio. Henry F. 
Schell, having a year or two before served the Turkey- 
Foot congregation as deacon, on his return to Somerset 
in 1852 served them till his resignation in 1870. Aza- 
riah Dunham and John F. Kantner became deacons 
about i860, and J. H. Pisel in 1868; all these resigned 
with H. F. Schell in 1870. Kantner died October 31, 



CO TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

1880, and was buried on the day that Garfield was 
elected President. A. T. Ankeny, Azariah Dunham 
and Urias Trent were elected July 24, 1870, and or^ 
dained October 9th of the same year. Ankeny moved 
to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the spring of 1872, Dun- 
ham left for the West in 1873, and Trent joined the 
Dunkards in the spring of 1879. Philip E. Mowryand 
Josiah H. Pisel were ordained December 18, 1870. Of 
these Pisel still acts, but Mowry moved to Schellsburg, 
Bedford county, Pa., in the spring of 1874, and after- 
wards returned and died at Somerset. Wm. M. Schrock, 
L. C. Colborn, J. G. Ogle, J. M. Cook, and J. H. 
Kantner were elected deacons March 19, 1876; Ogle 
moved to Latrobe March 1, 1886, Schrock acts as 
church clerk, and Kantner, owing to precarious health, 
is excused ; the others still serve. M. J. Pritts was 
chosen April 4, 1880, and served till elected elder. Dr. 
H. S. Kimmell entered the service early in 1883. The 
force was increased on February 14, 1886, by the elec- 
tion of John A. Lambert, F. B. Granger, Francis F. 
Herr, and Wm. H. Hochstettler. 

Deaconesses : On March 19, 1876, the following 
eight sisters were put into this office: Mrs. A. J. Col- 
born, Mrs. Hettie P. Kimmell, Mrs. H. Ogle, (daugh- 
ter of Chauncey Forward), Miss Belle Kimmell, Miss 
Matilda Postlethwaite, Miss Nellie Ankeny, and Miss 
Martha Knable. Of these Mrs. Hurst moved away in 
1877 and is now in Johnstown, and Mrs. Kimmell went 
to Pittsburgh in February, 1882. 

The deaconesses have not honored their office to 
the extent that it was originally intended. They still 
serve on baptismal occasions, but do not systematically, 
as officers, visit the sick and needy as was originally de- 



ELDERS AND DEACONS. 



61 



signed and begun, nor take upon themselves formally 
such spiritual functions as the primitive church assigned 
to such officers. It is, however, the intention, at least 
on the part of the incumbent minister, to see that this 
department of church-work shall receive its full script- 
ural attention. 

The deacons serve in two sections, in the matter of 
distributing the emblems on communion occasions, 
alternating every six months. They are not exclusively 
confined to the temporalities of the church, but meet 
in monthly business session with the elders, having a 
voice with them in the determination of spiritual ques- 
tions, as the elders also have in the temporalities. 

Before the days of settled ministers from abroad (as 
even now in an interim or in a temporary absence of 
the preacher) the elders were "pastors and teachers" 
in the full sense of the expression. They either 
preached themselves or frequently had competent 
deacons, or non-officials (of whom there were many) 
do it under their supervision. In earlier days their 
seat was not only in front, as now, but facing the con- 
gregation, that they might be bishops, i. e. y overseers, 
indeed in the very house of God. They administered 
baptism, performed marriages, visited the membership 
(especially when a seat was vacant on Lord's day), 
buried the dead, sent some of their number abroad to 
break the bread of life to feebler churches, and even 
held protracted meetings here and there. Much of 
this work is now largely delegated to the settled minis- 
ter from abroad ; who is, therefore, virtually the pastor, 
though not always formally set apart to the eldership 
or office of bishop. 

When it is considered that always a large percent- 



62 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

age, often the majority of the officers of this church, 
have been honorable and even conspicuous members of 
some of the learned professions, especially the legal, 
and that a number of the private members have at least 
a tolerable acquaintance with more languages than one, 
it can be readily seen that this church takes second 
rank in point of intelligence with no church among us. 



Of those now living none deserve worthier mention 
than the senior elder, Henry F. Schell. He was 
born near Schellsburg, Bedford county, Sept. 14. 
1822; came to Somerset in 1840; was educated at 
Bethany ; read law under Judge Black, and was ad- 
mitted to the Somerset Bar on Aug. 31, 1847. Here 
he was married to Miss Rose A. Stewart, May 10, 
1848, Wm. H. Posthlethwaite officiating. Their liv- 
ing children are Mary Schell, Sue Nichol, and Stewart 
Schell, all consistent, active Christians. In 1857 ne was 
chief burgess of this borough, school director in 1870, 
and prothonotary and clerk of the several Somerset 
courts during the years 1876-81 inclusive. He gave 
some $1,200 to the building of the present meeting- 
house, is one of the few heavy contributors for home- 
preaching and other expenses, and a liberal giver to 
missionary and kindred benevolent enterprises. For 
years, in the absence of a regular minister, he has 
filled the pulpit with great acceptance, always adorning 
his teaching by exemplary practice. 



In the list of deacons above given, Awos W. Knep- 
per has been inadvertantly omitted. He has served in 
that capacity since 1874, being, with a single excep- 
tion, the oldest deacon on tht present active staff. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE THREE MARYS. 



The reader has already seen much of those holy 
women, the three Marys, and doubtless desires a 
closer acquaintance. Excepting Mary Morrison, who, 
however, did a brief good work elsewhere, they lived 
long after the culminating events of 1829, and wrought 
noble things for the Lord. Three cruel fires have, 
however, swept the best portion of the town ; one on 
October 16, 1833, starting at night in the house of 
Joshua F. Cox, and laying over thirty dwellings in 
ashes; another and larger one on May 9th, 1872 ; and 
one May 4, 1877, that destroyed about $175,000 worth 
of property, to say nothing of invaluable private treas- 
ures, mementos and documents. Not a church record 
escaped, not a single file of the town publications was 
saved. Here was a loss to our history that can never 
be repaired, and a weakening of financial strength that 
has sadly crippled our growth in the State. Only such 
documents as happened to be outside of the burnt dis- 
trict or had found their way to other portions of the 
commonwealth, are available ; and these only in part, 

for some are not recognized by the holders at their true 

63 



64 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

value, or are in indifferent hands. What might have 
been an easy task is thus made difficult and meager in 
results. 

And first we must take a general view of the three 
Marys, then individualize. 

Dr. Wm. Shadrach, ordained to the Baptist minis- 
try in the latter part of 1828, and who, in his eighty- 
third year, still ministers to that people with the vigor 
of a man of sixty, recently dictated to the writer as 
follows : 

" I was profoundly interested in those three pious ladies, on my 
first visit to Somerset, on learning of their fidelity in keeping up the 
visibility of the church, and in maintaining, in the face of many dis- 
couragements, their testimony to the truth as they believed that they 
had been taught of God. For three years they had kept up their de- 
votional exercises without any male assistance, supporting the religious 
life of the church. I think that they never wavered under any circum- 
stances. I was newly ordained to the ministry, and found them so 
zealous that I was strongly drawn to them." 

Judge F. M. Kimmell, of Chambersburg, Pa., 
writes thus, under date of August II, 1883 : 

"Conspicuous in the church in its origin were the three Marys: 
Mary Ogle, Mary Graft, and Mary Morrison. The folks at Somerset 
can tell you what they did for the cause — their self-sacrificing devotion 
to the church, how they sustained it in the beginning, almost unaided, 
until by the influence of their excellent example and their zeal, it be- 
gan to grow and expand until it finally embraced the best elements 
and the most intelligent in the town and vicinity. The three Marys 
were nobly good. They were well fitted for the work they performed ; 
all of them "bright, intelligent and cultured persons, of blameless life. 
They 'lived respected and died beloved' by all. I wish 1 had time to 
gather up the fragments of their history, for much of it is lost, and 
soon the lapse of time will blot the facts from the memory of the living. 
God be praised that the Historian of the eternal world has stored away 
all, so as never to be forgotten." 




Mary • o&le 



THE THREE MARYS. 



65 



Over two years later the Judge wrote again, and as 
follows : 

" The three Marys were aged sisters when I knew them. Their 
work began long before my time. The church was strong in 1836 [the 
time of the Judge's coming to the place], embracing the most intelli- 
gent people of the town and vicinity. Mary Morrison resided at 
Johnstown, and I saw her only a few times; and then her mind was 
greatly impaired. Mary Graft and Mary Ogle lived and died in Somer- 
set, and were always active in church affairs. I think they loved the 
church as women love children, because they considered it as their 
own. Mother, or as we called her, Aunty Graft, was an ardent, 
thorough-going sister, and gave her time and means to the Lord. But 
the finest intellect was Grandmother Ogle. She had an acute mind, 
read the Scriptures understandingly, remembered them well, had an 
unerring judgment. She was a born controversialist, was ever ready 
for the fight for the truth, and was a formidable competitor. It was 
pleasant to hear these two sisters, in their great age, tell of their trials 
and difficulties in old times, how they retrenched in their family ex- 
penses for the cause. For many years they sustained the church alone 
and nearly unaided. I never met their equal. They reminded me of 
the other Marys, who, when the brethren fled away from the cruci- 
fixion, would not flee, but witnessed it afar off, and then hastening to 
the tomb, and finding it empty, ran with the glad news that the Lord 
had risen indeed. There is no end to the good that women can do 
when they give themselves, soul, body, and spirit, to the work." 

Elder James Darsie, who also knew these women, 
among other things which are a repetition of the fore- 
going, writes : 

"They were possessed of a strong faith and were largely endued 
with the grace of continuance. They maintained the organization for 
a long time alone, and kept the ordinances without a male member in 
the church." 



The books that people read, like the company they 
keep, mould their lives. Before individualizing, there- 
fore, it would be of interest to take a look into the libra- 



66 TALE Ob A PIONEER CHURCH. 

ries of the Marys. Unfortunately, however, those de- 
structive fires have made this largely impossible. To 
say nothing of the standard historians and poets, and 
always placing the Bible first and chief, it is known 
that the following titles were among the number of 
their books and are presumably a fair index to the rest : 
J. Taylor's "Life of our Blessed Lord, etc;" John 
Rippon's "Selection of Hymns;" James P. Wilson's 
" Lectures on some of the Parables and Historical Pas- 
sages of the New Testament;" John Bunyan's "Pil- 
grim's Progress ; " Harvey's "Meditations;" Baxter's 
"Saints' Rest" and "Call to the Unconverted;" 
Amos Blanchard's " Book of Martyrs;" Hester Ann 
Rogers' "Experience and Spiritual Letters;" Sarah 
Grubb's "Life and Religious Labors;" and George 
Burder's sixty-five " Village Sermons." To this must 
be added such current religious publications as The 
Christian Baptist and Millennial Harbinger. 

Mention was made, in an earlier chapter, of the 
"Village Sermons" and the use these women made 
of those two volumes. Since then, Volume II. has 
fallen into the writer's hands ; and did space permit, it 
would be interesting to make large extracts from that 
work in which there is so little to condemn and so much 
to approve. As, however, it is of English origin and 
helps to answer the question 

" Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, 
That he hath grown so great ? " 

a few brief extracts must be given. 

"In our reception of this Scripture doctrine [that of the Trinity] 
we are not bound to adopt the mode of expression used or enforced by 



THE THREE MARYS. 6j 

any particular divine or churches. Some good men, in their attempts 
to explain the doctrine, have rather perplexed it. Some good men 
have said, that " the Father is the fountain of Deity " — that " He com- 
municated His whole essence to His Son" — that " the Son is eternally 
begotten of the Father," and that He is "very God of very God." As 
these expressions are only private interpretations of Bible truth, we 
are at liberty to admit or reject them, as they appear to be scriptural 
or not." 

" We do not affirm that the three are one, in the same sense that 
they are three. We say they are three, in person ; one, in essence." 

"And the Lord said: 'My spirit shall not always strive with 
men,' that is, by the good counsels and faithful warnings of Noah and 
others." 

" By faith we mean * a belief of the truth,' especially of the testi- 
mony of God concerning His Son Jesus Christ." 

" It is the office of Christian faith, to take God at His word." 

" Faith begins in an assent, a cordial assent, to the truth of the 
Gospel. The believer sets his seal to it that it is true. Faith proceeds 
to affiance or trust in Christ." 

" Repentance is a tear dropped from the eye of faith." 

" Peter answered, 'Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.' 
This was a good answer, and He (Jesus) greatly commended it ; 
and having mentioned His name, takes occasion to speak of this confes- 
sion He made, this article of faith, as the rock, or foundation, on which 
the whole New Testament Church shall be built." 

" What is baptism but a declaration of our misery by sin, our need 
of Christ as a purifier, and a badge of our belonging to Him? We are 
'baptized unto Christ,' we are 'buried and risen with Christ,' we ' put 
on Christ.' " 

"No man has a grain of religion till he sees the need, and feels 
the want, of the pardon of his sins." 

"The destruction of our sins is compared to the crucifixion of 
Christ, not only because it is like it, but because it proceeds from it. 
. . . Crucifixion is a violent and painful death and so is the death 
of sin. . . . Jesus compares it to cutting off a right hand, or 
plucking out a right eye, but he says this is better than going to hell 
with two hands or two eyes." 

" We pity the ravings of a man in a fever, who fancies himself in 
health ; such is the dangerous condition of sinners." 

"It has been often and justly observed, 'We have but one such 
instance [as the conversion of the " thief"] in all the Bible ; one sin- 



68 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

ner converted at the hour of death, that we may hope; and but one, 
that we may fear.' And suppose it had once happened that a person 
had leaped down from a lofty precipice without losing his life, would 
it be prudent for ten thousand other people to run the risk, and leap 
down after him?" 

Mary Morrison, the youngest of the three Marys, 
was born in Berlin, then Bedford, now Somerset 
county, Pa., about the year 1780. She was the 
only daughter in the family. Her father's name was 
George Schwartz, and, as his name indicates, of Ger- 
man nationality. The family was of the Lutheran 
faith. Berlin, in fact, to this day pays yearly a 
Spanish milled dollar on every lot as perpetual ground- 
rent to the Lutheran and Reformed churches — a cus- 
tom also once settled by deed on a part of Somerset, 
but since obliterated by buying off the heirs. 

Mary's marriage to Abraham Morrison, an able 
lawyer, a prominent citizen, and a bachelor some 
twenty or thirty years her senior, brought her to 
Somerset. Mr. Morrison belonged to no church, 
though he called himself a Presbyterian. He was, 
however, immersed after the death of his wife, rather 
from remorse, it is thought, than from genuine repent- 
ance ; for his bearings towards his wife lacked in the 
pleasant and tender elements, and a second marriage 
revealed to him the fact that not all women have the 
patience of angels. 

Mary Morrison was of medium stature, as between 
the other Marys, stout of body, and dressed in various 
colors. She had dark hair, soft black eyes, the 
mildest, gentlest voice, "an excellent thing in a 
woman," and sang most sweetly, as is perfectly 
remembered by those who were children in her day. 



THE THREE MARYS. 69 

The marked prominence of her loveliness of character 
and mildness of disposition gained for her the name of 
"the Dove." Never having been blessed with chil- 
dren of her own, her bearing was motherly and tender 
to those of other households, especially to the children 
of the Lord. She and Mary Ogle would even cut up 
such bed-clothes as they could spare, and turn them 
into garments for the children of the poor. Her six 
fine Gage plum trees, on the lot where Pisel's grocery 
now stands, were known by taste to many a mouth. 
Her husband, however, did not share in her benevolent 
enterprises. Once, in a fit of anger, while she was at 
church on a Lord's day, he cut them down with all 
their ripened burden. Without complaint, she meekly 
harvested the crop, thankful that it was so accessible, 
and liberally remembered her sisters in Christ. 

Of her labors in behalf of the Somerset church, 
nothing further need be said than has already appeared 
in earlier chapters or will be mentioned in connection 
with the other Marys, with whom she had joined both 
heart and hand in every enterprise for Christ and 
humanity. 

Early in the thirties her husband chose Johnstown, 
Pennsylvania, for the field of his legal operations, and 
so parted her from her well-loved Zion. Nothing 
daunted by this deprivation, she set herself at work to 
provide a religious home of her kind and faith in that 
place. The first convert was a Roman Catholic lady 
by the name of Cooper, a very estimable woman, whose 
husband was an inventor of car machinery, and was 
baptized either with her or shortly thereafter, and in 
the course of time even preached some. A "merchant 
tailor by the name of Levan also early cast his lot 



yO TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH^ 

with them, and afterwards himself held occasional 
meetings. For a reaper of her sowing, Mary Morri- 
son naturally looked to her recent pastor, Chauncey 
Forward, who was not slow in responding. His first 
meeting was begun in the Methodist meeting-house, 
an old shell, which was soon denied for further use. 
Next the Lutheran house was briefly occupied, with the 
same result. Then some old place was secured till the 
brethren put up a hasty structure, which soon caved in 
at the top. Money was scarce, but love for the Master 
was abundant and strong, so they finally got a com- 
fortable house, which a few years ago was supplanted 
by the present fine and commodious two-storied brick 
in which Bro. W. L. Hayden dispenses the bread of 
life to growing congregations and with increasing suc- 
cess. The communion cups presented by Mary Mor- 
rison continued in use till about two years ago. 

Mary Morrison was little inclined to the use of 
the pen, preferring to communicate her thoughts and 
lessons by the living voice. More as a memento than 
for any special value, the only letter of hers known to 
the writer is here given : 

"Johnstown, June 28, 1833.. 
" Mr. Morrison is sending John to Somerset. He says he may go 
to the vineyard, but I think the church should see that he is taken 
care of. I am not very well. No more at present. I should like to 
hear from the members. My love to all my Christian friends. 

" Mary Morrison." 

The later years of Mary Morrison were burdened 
with the care of her mother and brother, whose minds 
had weakened. Indeed, she herself finally passed into 
such a mental gloom, but never, through it all, lost 
her native mildness of spirit. Her end was like the 



THE THREE MARYS. 



7* 



setting sun that darts golden rays through the veiling 
clouds. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1850 the 
Lord crowned her toil-filled years with rest in heaven's 
peace. 'T is thus His saints go home. 

Mary Ogle was born shortly after the Declaration of 
Independence, namely, September 6, 1776, near the 
present Schellsburg, Bedford county, Pennsylvania, and 
of Welch Presbyterian parents by the name of Wil- 
liams. She was a farmer's daughter, and had two sis- 
ters and three brothers, all older than herself. Ephraim 
was immersed at Schellsburg shortly before his death, 
along with the Schells, by Dr. P. G. Young. Hannah 
married a Berry, and moved to Zanesville, Ohio, where 
she obeyed the Saviour. Sally married a Fletcher, and 
was baptized in the Baptist Church, at Mount Pleasant, 
Pennsylvania. The history of Mary's conversion has 
already been detailed. 

In personal appearance she was the smallest of the 
three Marys, being about three or four inches over five 
feet in height, of delicate frame, raven hair, dark- 
brown eyes easily mistaken for black, and lovely feat- 
ures. She was always well dressed and according to 
the prevailing fashion, never in the lead to attract atten- 
tion, and never in the rear to invite criticism. The accom- 
panying picture, made from a photograph taken from 
an oil painting, necessarily falls short of the expression, 
grace and beauty of the original. It represents her at 
the age of thirty-four, and with her favorite secular 
author, Cowper's poems, in hand. 

Her childhood-recollections were clear as to parts 
of winters passed in Bedford Fort for fear of Indians, 
and as to occasional hasty flights at other times to the 
same refuge. The bloody murder, in 1777, of the Tull 



j2 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

family, father, mother and nine daughters, near where 
Schellsburg now stands, which deed was first discov- 
ered by her father, was of course beyond her personal 
memory ; but such stories, often told, had a tendency 
to early maturity of mind and self-dependency. 

She was early married to Gen. Alexander Ogle, a 
native of Maryland, and some eleven years her senior. 
They first lived at Stoyestown, where their first two 
children were born and where he kept a tavern and a 
store. Afterwards he moved to Somerset to pursue 
the same occupation, till he went to the Legislature. 
His Somerset house stood on the lot now occupied by 
Boyd's drug-store. In those days the tavern-keeper 
was the great man of the community. With him the 
stage-driver stopped, and around his fire-place the lead- 
ing men of the community gathered of evenings, and 
on other important occasions, to exchange the local 
news and hear the coachman's "foreign" intelligence 
and wonderful adventures. It was thought not only 
harmless but just the thing to enliven the occasion, by 
turns, with the "cheery" glass. It is the deep-seated 
memory of those "grand old times" that to this day 
lends the licensing of drink an undefined dignity and 
ascribes its work of ruin rather to individual degeneracy 
and weakness than to the intrinsic demon-character of 
the traffic. Grave judges on the bench, whose per- 
sonal or traditional memories are rooted in those days, 
still construe the better law under this unconscious 
bias, and under its mystic spell the older physicians 
write prescriptions. But, thanks to the advent of rail- 
roads and a rising generation that "knew not Joseph," 
a better day is approaching its noon. 

General Ogle was a man of such commanding pres- 



THE THREE MARYS. 



73 



ence that the announcement of his name was sufficient 
to quell any quarrel on the street. It was this quality, 
coupled with certain fitness, that made him Brigadier- 
general of Militia, then Major-general ; also nine years 
Prothonotary, repeatedly a member of the State Legis- 
lature, once State Senator, and once Representative in 
Congress, where he designated his constituency as ' ' The 
Frosty Sons of Thunder," a title they relish to this 
day. The convivial habits contracted by his manner 
of life stood in the way of his ever bowing to the 
Saviour, though in theory he espoused the faith of his 
noble wife. His generous hospitality was free to all 
ministers of the gospel. He lighted the church fires, 
rang the bell, provided communion wine, assisted the 
poor, and even wrote incisive controversial articles in 
favor of his wife's tenets. So well did he understand 
the requirements of the gospel that he wrote, 4 ' Dip a 
fox ten times and he is a fox still." When he died, in 
1832, his several farms and other properties had one by 
one fallen a sacrifice to suretyship and personal habits. 

It was under circumstances like these, certainly not 
the most favorable, that Mary Ogle did her splendid 
work. But two of her children lived to maturity. Her 
oldest son, Alexander, who became the husband of 
" Aunt Charlotte," trod in the footprints of his father, 
whilst he youngest, Charles, preferred the ways of 
his mother. 

Mary Ogle, as well as the other Marys, was not 
bound by any narrow sectarianism, though unswerving 
in convictions. When these women had no religious 
services of their own to hinder, they embraced every 
opportunity to worship with the denominations about 
them. Such persons as they could not induce to see 



74 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

through their eyes, they preferred to see in other 
churches rather then have them be no worshipers at all. 
This feeling led them to do many a generous thing, 
however unreciprocated it might be. The Presbyterians, 
for example, were weak. So when Mr. Ross with his 
wife, child, and his wife's sister, Eliza York, came to 
minister unto them, he was invited to make his home 
free of all charge during his entire stay in Somerset, 
first with Mary Morrison and then with Mary Ogle. 
His successor, Mr. Frontes, a single man, lived on the 
same terms with Mary Graft. Yet once, when Elders 
Wheeler and Estep were expected here over Lord's 
day, Rev. Ross rode to Jenner on Saturday, without 
any appointment there, and did not return till those 
Baptist ministers were gone. On his return he asked 
Mary Ogle, ' ' What were those men here for to preach 
to my people?" "I did not know that they were your 
people," was the reply. " Yes, " said he, "all Somer- 
set is mine." It is but fair to add that this occurred 
before the formal organization of the Baptist Church, 
though after the "Society" had gone into full opera- 
tion. 

Such was the devotion of these women that, in 
order to be able to save money and other means for the 
Lord, they retrenched in all their family expenses and 
did their housework without any domestic help. And 
that a large share of the day might be given to gospel 
labor,, they usually did their washing and ironing after 
night, the delicate Mary Ogle not excepted. 

Mary Ogle was not only the prime mover and chief 
spirit in all that was done by these memorable women, 
but with conscientious carefulness she matured all 
plans well before submitting them to the others, first 



THE THREE MARYS. 75 

approaching Mary Morrison and then Mary Graft. Her 
soundness of judgment and activeness of zeal stayed 
with her to the time of her death, at the age of eighty- 
seven years and three months. In the words of the 
poet Moore, she said to her soul — 

"The sacred pages of God's own book 
Shall be the spring, the eternal brook 
In whose holy mirror, night and day, 
Thou 'It study Heaven's reflected ray." 

Her constant prayer was — 

" Oh, teach me to love Thee, to feel what Thou art, 
Till, filled with the one sacred image, my heart 

Shall all other passions disown ; 
Like some pure temple, that shines apart, 

Reserved for Thy worship alone. 

"In joy and in sorrow, through praise and through blame, 
Thus still let me, living and dying the same, 

In Thy service bloom and decay — 
Like some lone altar, whose votive flame 
In holiness wasteth away." 

Her gentleness of disposition and meekness of 
spirit rejoiced to see brethren in the lead, when the re- 
organization of 1829 was effected, just as John said of 
the Master, " He must increase, but I must decrease." 
Nevertheless she worked as diligently as ever, but, as 
suited her best, in a more retired way. She continued 
to be an angel of mercy in time of physical need, a 
true guide to the spiritually blind, and God's raven to 
many a famishing soul. Men like Wm. H. Schell find 
their earliest desires to "preach the word" rooted in 
her loving counsels. Maxwell's lines constituted her 
favorite hymn : 



j6 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

" How shall I my Saviour set forth? 
How shall I His beauties declare? 
O how shall I speak of His worth, 
Or what His chief dignities are ? 

Next to this, she delighted in the psalm of Watts — 

" My Spirit looks to God alone ; 
My rock and refuge is His throne ; 
In all my fears, in all my straits, 
My soul for His salvation waits." 

So afraid was she of making an undue display of 
herself that in her later days she committed all her ac- 
cessible writings to the flames. When chided by her 
friends for the act, she replied, "May be some day I 

might have a feeling of self-glorification like Mrs. , 

and I do not want to have it." The only letter 
of hers known to the writer to be in existence, aside 
from the two already quoted, is the following one of 
early date, addressed to Mrs. Ann Rhees, of Phila- 
delphia: 

Somerset, Oct. 15, 1814. 
"It seems an age since I wrote or heard from my dear Mrs. Rhees. 
All I can do at so great a distance, is to read over your letters, which 
afford me much pleasure. My situation at present is something simi- 
lar to the Israelites at the river of Babylon. They wept when they 
thought on their beloved city; so it is with me when I think on the 
Christian friends in Philadelphia. But I can not say that they are 
always tears of sorrow, but rather, as St. Paul expresses it, as sorrow- 
ful, yet rejoicing. I have been much comforted in reading my Bible, 
and also a passage in Cowper's poems gave me particular consolation 
in reading it. The lines run thus : 

"Ah, be not sad, although thy lot be cast 

Far from the flock, and in a boundless waste ! 
No shepherd's tents within thy view appear, 
But the Chief Shepherd even there is near; 
Thy tender sorrows and thy plaintive strain, 
flow in a foreign land, but not in vain ; 



THE THREE MARYS. 



77 



Thy tears all issue from a source divine, 
And every drop bespeaks a Saviour thine — 
So once in Gideon's fleece the dews were found, 
And drought on all the drooping herbs around.' 

" But I am under renewed obligations to the Giver of every good 
and perfect gift for the hope He has given us of the spread of the gos- 
pel in this place. There have been two large meetings of the Metho- 
dists here lately. We also have had preaching in our new church by 
ministers of different denominations. The people have paid a degree 
of respect and reverence for the two Fast-days proclaimed by the 
Governor. They sent for Mr. Steel, who is a preacher, and an amiable 
man, and we had a meeting. 

" I know that it will give you pleasure to hear that Dr. Estep was in 
Somerset ; and he tarried with us from Saturday to Monday ; preached 
on Sabbath morning from Rom. xiii. 13, 14, and afternoon from Amos 
vii. 2, last clause, wherein he beautifully illustrated the Scripture and 
shewed that although Jacob was small he should arise by the God of 
his salvation, directing our ideas to the small beginning of Israel, an 
exile from his father's house, as it were, and shewing that his prosper- 
ity and deliverance in every time of trouble proceeded from the omni- 
potent arm of the Lord. He would call forth our recollection to the 
small beginning of the church at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost and 
how it prospered in the face of every persecution and opposition ; 
and the idea was to be applied to every individual member of the 
Church — that we should, however small, arise by the God of our sal- 
vation. 

"Oh, my friend! Thankful ought we to be for this encouragement. 
May we not ask with the Psalmist, What shall we render to our God 
for all His kindness shewn ? Or, what can we render to Him, seeing 
we have naught but what we have received from His bountiful hand, 

"'Come then, expressive silence, muse His praise.' 

"I feel thankful for Mrs. Hallman's letter, amd so are all the 
friends here for the good news it contained. I would have written to 
her, but am waiting for something better to communicate than I have 
at present. 

" Remember me affectionately to her, and tell her not to forget to 
write to her friend on the mountains. I have a thousand things to say 
to my dear friends, such as: how is Dr. H., and Dr. S., and Mrs. 
Birch, Mr. and Mrs. Mealen, and Mrs. Reane [Keane?], and all the 
friends ? But I fear I shall weary you. 






78 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

" Please to remember me to your good mother and dear children, 
and permit me to subscribe myself, 

"Affectionately yours, 

" Mary Ogle." 

Mary Ogle's constant theme was "the blessed 
Master." His second coming was the inspiration of 
her life. For this she yearned as a loving child for the 
arms of its mother. Her highest ambition was first to 
be ready herself, and, secondly, to have all about her 
ready for His glorious advent. She watched each shin- 
ing cloud as the possible chariot of her Lord, and 
craved the privilege of meeting Him in the air. If die 
she must, she wished it to be at church, on the Lord's 
day, and at communion. Up to within three weeks of 
the end she sat regularly in the sanctuary, and then lay 
down to go to Him who had not come to her. 




/Iart-T-Qrapt 



CHAPTER X. 

THE THREE MARYS CONTINUED. 

Maty T. Graft was the oldest of the three Marys, 
and lived the longest. She was born before the Revo- 
lution, on October I, 1772, and died August 15, 1862, 
though current report makes her only eighty-eight 
years old at her death. The parental name was Martin, 
and the family was Presbyterian. They lived on 
Bloody Run, Bedford county, Pennsylvania, near its 
junction with that storied stream where 

"Wild roved the Indian girl, bright Alfarata, 
Where sweep the waters of the blue Juniata ;" 

and where the Indian girl chanted — 

' Strong and true my arrows are in my painted quiver ; 
Swift goes my light canoe adown the rapid river." 

The name Bloody Run arose from the circum- 
stance that a large number of traders, who were grati- 
fying their passion for lucre at the expense of the 
public good by surreptitiously furnishing the savages 
with the implements and material for war, were so 
summarily dealt with by stern men, in a hollow among 
the hills, that the evidence of their future harmlessness 



SO TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

was borne in crimson proof on the stream into the set 
tlement below. 

For six years in succession the family effects were 
in winter concealed beneath the puncheon floor of the 
cabin, while the family went ten miles west for refuge 
in Fort Bedford. The last year the cabin itself was 
burnt by the savages. Mary Graft often recounted 
how, when the men were absent from the Fort, she 
used to stand with her mother, aunt, and other women, 
on the inside steps of the Fort, scythes, axes, and 
other implements in hand, to ward off hostile Indians. 

She grew to be a woman of five feet and five inches 
in stature, the tallest of the three, of symmetrical 
build, and had light brown hair and blue eyes. Her 
only disfigurement was a wart on one side of her nose, 
which she called her "thorn in the flesh ;" and the fre- 
quent trimming of which, on the first Friday of the 
new moon, eventually resulted in cancer and caused 
her death. The accompanying picture is from an am- 
brotype, taken when she was about seventy-two years 
of age, and is the only one for which she could ever be 
induced to sit and then only by stratagem. 

In the course of time Mr. Martin kept public 
house. Around his tavern sprang up a hamlet called 
Bloody Run, which was afterwards changed to Martins- 
burg, and, since the construction of the Huntington 
and Broad Top railroad, has grown to twelve hundred 
inhabitants and is known as Everett. Before the days 
of railroads the Philadelphia and Pittsburg pike super- 
seded the Indian trail, along which pike the Campbells 
came in their journey to Washington county, Pennsyl- 
vania, little dreaming that they were stepping in the 
literal footprints of a woman who would soon clelight 






?&■??'■;. 




MIL* 
BIBB9H 

■'-■ . 



'mm£ 







Jacob -Qrapt 



THE THREE MARYS. 8 1 

to tread in their moral and spiritual footsteps. Similarly 
to this, the angels that • ' camp around about them that 
fear Him," shall be some day met and personally 
known and loved. 

In early days, a dauntless rider from Carlisle, Cum- 
berland county, Pennsylvania, born the first night of 
1 770, and who had neither fear of Indian nor savage 
wolf before his eyes, carried U. S. mail from Philadel- 
phia to Pittsburg. He followed the wilderness path, 
riding one horse and leading another behind. The 
Martin tavern was one of his regular stopping places. 
Between this rider, Jacob Graft, and Mary Martin { 
a friendship sprang up that in two years ripened into 
matrimony. Shortly after the latter event he chose 
Somerset, then called Brunerstown, as a home, because 
of its lovely situation and convenience to his business. 
It was a hamlet of only three houses, and Mary Graft- 
was duly installed as post-mistress, while Mr. Graft 
continued his perilous government service till thr pack- 
horse was superseded by the stage-coach. The mar- 
riage union of this hero and heroine was blessed with but 
one child, Mrs LaRue Pile, born July 12, 1799, in the 
one room that served as kitchen and parlor, bed-room 
and guest-chamber, residence and post-office. The hoary 
widowed days of this daughter, a member of the Luth- 
eran Church, still take in the sunshine of Somerset. 

Mary Graft was a character of marked individuality. 
She dressed in Quaker fashion, presumably after an ad- 
mired authoress presently to be mentioned. " Honey," 
she would say, "I always dressed plainly but richly." 
She never would wear black, for she held that "the 
devil is black." Nor did she like flowers as personal 
decorations, and usually turned her back on such as 



82 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



came thus adorned into the house of God. Grayish 
brown, or, better still, grayish white, was her prefer- 
ence. When the angel ol death called for her, this 
was the color of the crape at her door. Agreeably also 
to her own request, her coffin was of the same color, 
being covered with material from one of her dresses, 
as W. T. Moore may remember, who, at his second 
meeting here, preached her funeral. 

She was a very stirring woman, walked with rapid 
stride, swinging a handkerchief to and fro, and was 
not afraid of anything that promised an honest 
penny. For a while she taught a sewing and read- 
ing school. Her mother had also brought her med- 
ical books from over the sea, and practiced as 
midwife and general medical adviser in cases of 
sickness. Among the many beneficial things, these 
books also explained such mysteries as how, when 
elder bark is stripped one way, it has such and such 
an effect, and when stripped in the opposite way, 
it has such and such a contrary effect ! To these books 
Mary Graft fell heir, and she pursued her mother's pro- 
fession, which she regarded as a divine calling. It was 
so like the Master, this going about to do good, and 
gave her many an opportunity to speak in His behalf. 
Nor was this life without its ludicrous incidents. Once, 
for example, when calling at the house of a daughter 
of Erin, she found her impatiently complaining of 
neuralgia. Mary Graft was ready with her best pre- 
scription : " What you need most in an hour like this, 
honey, is grace." Quick as a flash came the reply, 
"Grase, grase, an shure haven't oi thried iv'ry kind o' 
grase, and nuthin' wull do goode a-tall, a-tall!" 

Mr. Graft had not the faculty of rapid money-get- 



THE THREE MARYS. 83 

ting, and butchering and toll-gate keeping, especially 
in a small place, are not very remunerative. Out of 
his few means, he even lost his dwelling in 1823 for 
his kindness in bailing a man given to drink. Though 
they gained another property, Mary Graft was thus 
limited in her benevolent expenditures as well as in the 
conveniences of life. Nevertheless, she did not allow 
these things to thwart her designs. While the other 
Marys, who generally went together, visited more fre- 
quently in and about town, she extended her excur- 
sions to the distance of some miles. Frequently she 
would take a basket of provisions on her arm and at- 
tend Methodist meetings at the base of Laurel Hills, 
from eight to ten miles west. In early days she often 
went afoot to attend services at the Jersey Church, 
twenty miles south. Once she received a letter from 
Mrs. Belle Parker of Berlin, mother of Mrs. J. O. 
Kimmel, from which she gathered that Mrs. Parker 
was deeply concerned about her own soul's interests. 
Mary Graft therefore prepared an early supper, and 
then said to her husband, " Child, I am going out, and 
may not be back till morning." Then she walked 
those ten miles east, read and prayed with Mrs. Parker 
till near morning, returning in time to cook breakfast. 

Some account must here be given of two women 
whose biographies (it were almost proper to say auto- 
biographies) gave pattern to Mary Graft's life and 
manner of work. One of them was Sarah Grubb, 
daughter, of William and Elizabeth Tuke, who was 
born at York, Great Britain, June 6, 1756, and entered 
the ministry among the Friends, or Quakers, in her 
twenty-third year, after having received a careful edu- 
cation in English, and to some extent in French. In 



84 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

company v/ith her "second mother," and after her 
marriage in 1782, occasionally with her husband, but 
for the most part with her friend Rebecca Jones and 
others, she attended and preached at the various 
annual, monthly, and other meetings of England, Scot- 
land, and Ireland, and towards the close of her life, 
even in Holland, Germany, France, and Switzerland. 
Much of the work consisted in visiting from house to 
house, seeking the lost or straying sheep of the Lord, 
and building them as living stones into the temple of 
God. She relieved the distressed, ministered to the 
sick, gave consolation to the dying, buried the dead, 
conducting the funeral service. Added to it all she 
constantly wrote long spiritual letters to her friends, 
even addressed communications to larger gatherings 
which she could not reach with voice or presence. 
With what sacrifice of home enjoyments and sense of 
duty this was done, will sufficiently appear by a few 
extracts from the period of her single life, spent in gos- 
pel travel in company with her step-mother. 

"With satisfaction and pleasure I have lately looked towards 
home with so much longing that a fear sometimes strikes me, lest in 
wisdom some unforeseen affliction should be sent to moderate it." 

" Home now looks at a great distance, and I find that it will con- 
tribute most to my peace to think as little of it as I well can." 

"This work of visiting families is the last that I should choose for 
myself, if I might be my own chooser ; but as it is wrong to des re that 
indulgence, I see I may as well give myself up to what appears in the 
line of duty." 

" For every fresh service and work in the church, we must ex- 
perience a renewed baptism of spirit and purification of gift; snd the 
more we have of the dross, or the reprobate silver, the more frequently 
must we pass through the fire." 

"The great meetings we meet with are overmuch for us, and what 
made it still worse to us at Liverpool, was a funeral in the afternoon, 



THE THREE MARYS. 85 

and a vast number of people. We little thought when we fixed our 
stay over second day at Manchester, that we should have one to 
attend there, which is the case this afternoon, and how it will be got 
over, I know not." 

" Our minds are often bowed down under a sense of the awfulness 
of our engagements, and dismayed at the sight ; nor need I say how 
closely our time is filled up therewith ; for after sitting with seven or 
eight families, we are generally ready for rest." 

Next in moulding power was Hester Ann Rogers, 
daughter of a Church of England clergyman by the 
name of Roe. She was born at Macclesfield, in 
Cheshire, January 31, 1756. Losing her father at the 
age of nine, she became worldly, but finally, in the 
face of much persecution, she turned Methodist, led a 
life of wondrous trust and prayer, gave her time to vis- 
iting the sick and needy, and to spiritual helpfulness to 
the distressed. August 19, 1784, she married Mr. 
James Rogers, a widowed Methodist minister, and died 
in 1794. In the ten years of her married life, besides 
caring for her step-children and becoming the mother of 
seven or eight children of her own, she so helped her 
husband that in three years the Society at Dublin in- 
creased from five hundred members to over eleven hun- 
dred ; in the next three years, at Cork, they swelled 
the membership from three hundred and ninety-seven 
to six hundred and fifty ; and in the first two of the 
three years at London, about five hundred were added. 
They were in the midst of a prosperous work at 
Spitalsfield when death called her to her reward. 
Thomas Coke, in his funeral sermon, says of her: 

" More true conjugal love could not, I think, be manifested by 
wife to her husband, than was by her. Mrs. Rogers was, to my 
knowledge, . . . his support indeed. . . . Though she de- 
voted much of her time to religious duties in public and in private, yet 



86 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

nothing seemed to be left undone which could make her children com- 
fortable and happy. Sue even prevented all their wants ; and was 
equally, nay, if it were possible, more attentive to Mr. Rogers' children 
by his former wife, than to her own. To the whole of them she de- 
lighted to give 'precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon 
line, line upon line, here a little, and there a little ;' watering the 
whole of her labors upon them with many tears aud daily fervent 
prayers. . . . And as a public person, she was useful in a high 
degree. She never indeed assumed the authority of teaching in the 
church, but she visited the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and 
delighted to pour out her soul in prayer for them. ... In the city 
of Dublin only, Mr. Rogers himself confesses, some hundreds of those 
whom he recsived into Society were brought to Christ or awak- 
ened by her gentle but incessant labors of love. In Cork, also, and in 
London, a similar success attended her pious exertions." 

In addition to all this, her husband says that Mrs. 
Rogers left behind "not less than three thousand 
quarto pages, all written by her own hand." 

It will be readily seen that Mary Graft sought to 
imitate these women, Mrs. Grubb and Mrs. Rogers, as 
far as her ability, views and circumstances permitted. 
Indeed, it is from her copies of their lives and letters 
that the foreging facts are condensed. 

In one respect, however, Mary Graft was more 
favored than the other Marys, namely, in that she had 
a husband who became a Christian with her, and gave 
her his active sympathy in all her good work. She was 
one of those constitutional talkers who overdo matters 
with those to whom they have too ready access, and 
she needed the balance-wheel and check she found in 
her husband. There are such women (and men, too, 
for that matter), whose piety and good intentions are 
undoubted by those at least who have a wider, deeper 
acquaintance with human nature, and have learned to 
" distinguish things that differ." Yet it is not so much 



THE THREE MARYS. 87 

against her as might be thought, that she failed to 
bring her only child over to her immersionistic and 
other views, for LaRue had taken lessons from her 
while she was still traveling the " broad guage" road, 
and was grown to womanhood when Mary Graft and 
husband were immersed, and within two years there- 
after married Mr. Pile, a Lutheran, with whom she 
was presumably even then "keeping company." 

In case Mary Graft's husband died before her, she 
intended to go about, like Mrs. Grubb, visiting the 
members and churches throughout this and adjoining 
States. As it was, she was incessantly writing letters 
to everybody far and near, preserving copies of them 
all, to be put into book form along with her other 
writings, akin to the biographies and spiritual letters of 
Mrs. Grubb and Mrs. Rogers. When age at length 
rendered her indisposed to undertake the task herself, 
she hoped that other hands would perform it after 
her death. The fires already spoken of have, however, 
put it beyond anybody's power to do so. Only the 
fragments, for the most part, of some twenty-five or 
thirty letters are left. When the parties addressed 
were within walking reach, these letters were either 
personally handed them, or, after the manner of the 
modern news-carrier, left in the halls or at the doors of 
houses. A sample or two of each class may be of in- 
terest. To Elder James Estep, some time in Decem- 
ber, 1819, she handed the following: 

" I need not tell you that I have found it good to wait upon the 
Lord at all times and in all places ; and standing near to His side, re- 
clining my head upon His bosom. I need not tell you that He is our 
Lord and our God, our foundation to build upon. M- T - G -" 



88 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

Mr. S. Howell Terry, a Presbyterian minister who 
preached at Somerset from July, 1830, till some time 
in 1833, sne addressed thus: 



"Dear Sir: — Permit me, if you please, to call you friend or 
brother, as you profess to love Jesus. So do I. You will recollect that 
Jesus was born of a woman, and after He rose from the dead He hon- 
ored Mary by conversing with her first. ' Go,' said He, 'to my breth- 
ren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and 
to my God and your God.' And there He sits pleading our cause to- 
day. So in this way I come conversing with you about this glorious 
Character, that conquered all the powers of darkness forever, through 
His sufferings and death for our salvation. 

" I have been excusing myself ever since the third morning of 
April, but God makes no excuses. To do His will is our present and 
eternal happiness. The subject [of your sermon?] was the Word. St. 
John says, ' In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were 
made by Him,' etc., etc. 'And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt 
among us.' Jesus, the Saviour of the world, says, ' He tnat rejecteth 
me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him : the word 
that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in th^ last day.' 

"To you, my friend, is the word of this salvation sent. Make it 
the man of your counsel. Jesus saith, ' I am the way, the truth, and 
the life.' The Father said, 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am 
well pleased: hear ye him.' The Son says, 'Go,' to you, 'preach the 
gospel,' in the full sense of the word; and you are to baptize the be- 
lievers. It would be well for you to take notice of Simon Peter, who 
was honored with the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And see how 
Jesus tested Peter's love, and then gave him His charge, before He was 
carried up into heaven, to feed His lambs and His sheep ! And 
remember that He did not invest any other of His disciples with the 
same power. Then turn to Acts, you know, and see how He preached 
the kingdom of heaveii, or the gospel, to the Jews first, and then read 
on to the ioth chapter of Acts, to the Gentiles, and there you will see 
how he made use of his authority given him by the King of kings and 
Lord of lords. Then you will observe that the kingdom of Christ is 
opened or unclosed to all the world. Jesus says, ' He that hath my 
commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me ; and he that 
loveth me shall be loved of my father, and I will love him, and will 



THE THREE MARYS. 89 

manifest myself to him.' ' Blessed are they that do his commandments, 
that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through 
the gates into the city.' Glory be to God, for He is worthy of our sub- 
jection to His glorious government. 

" Now, my brother, if you have any objection to my counsel, tell 
it to the Judge of quick and dead, when you come before Him this 
evening, and be so good as to let me hear the decision. 

" Now, to Him who taught as never man taught, be present and 
eternal praises. Amen. 

" Show this to friend Jacob Glessner, and next to him to Mr. 
Stewart. 

" From your dear friend in the kingdom of Christ, 

"Mary T. Graft. 
"To Mr. Terry." 

Her grandson, Graft M. Pile,' attended Pennsyl- 
vania College, at Gettysburg, preparing for the Luth- 
eran ministry. She was constantly in correspondence 
with him. One letter runs thus : 

" Somerset, August 30, 1845. 

" My Dear Grandson : — I received your letter of July, and was 
thankful for it. But my business was so multipresence that it is with 
difficulty I write now. But the divine Saviour makes no excuse; it is, 
do this and live. Peter was authorized by Jesus to open the door of 
His kingdom to all the world. He preached the gospel of Christ first 
to the Jews (Acts ii.), and then to the Gentiles (Acts x.). Now, the way 
was open to all the world. Remember, the fear of man begets a snare, 
but the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The Lord must have 
all the whole heart, and will ; then the veil shall be taken away, and 
you will see with your eyes, and hear with your ears, the glorious 
things spoken by your God and Saviour. Jesus said, ' He that reject- 
eth me and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him : the 
word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.' 

" When the Gentiles heard the word, the Lord had their heart and 
their will to hear what Peter had to preach to them, and they received 
the Holy Spirit. But they did not stop there ; they went on until they 
had fulfilled all things which were appointed for them to do by Jesus 
our Lord and Redeemer. But my dear grandson rejects the Saviour's 
baptism that came from the counsels of heaven. His baptism is full of 



90 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

present and eternal meaning, the while your baptism has not any mean- 
ing in it whatever. It came from the counsels of men of the earth. It 
is a sorrowful thought to your dear grandmother to see you rejectiug 
the testimony of Jesus, and the testimony of His holy apostles and 
prophets. 

"September 6. — I will try again to write. You say something 
about the foundation you are building on. The prophet says, * The 
stone which the builders refused is become the headstone of the 
corner.' Jesus said, 'The stone which the builders rejected, the same 
is become the head of the corner :' this is the Lord's doing, and it is 
marvelous in our eyes. Peter says, ' This is the stone which was set at 
naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.' Now 
you must remember that the Epistles of the holy apostles were writ- 
ten to baptized believers (they had been buried with Christ in bap- 
tism), and to them only who had been baptized for the remission of 
their sins. Jesus said to his disciples, ' He that heareth you, heareth 
me ; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me.' The apostle says, ' For 
ye are all the children of God, by faith in Christ Jesus ; for as many of 
you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. There 
is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is 
neither male nor female : for ye are all one in Christ Jesus And if ye 
be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the 
promise.' 

" Remember the Saviour's prayer to His Father for His holy 
apostles : all that hear them are to be one with the Father and the 
Son, and to enjoy their glorious community. 

"Glory be to our Lord and our God. He grants His presence to 
be with us too, and forever. May He add His blessing. Amen. 
"Your dear grandmother, 

" Mary T. Graft." 

" I enclose my mite. I wish you may get it in time ; it may be of 
some use to you. m. t. g." 

Many were the efforts she made and the letters she 
she wrote to convert the husband of Mary Ogle. Here 
is one of the briefest : 

"Somerset, August 19, 1826. 

"My Poor, Unhappy Neighbor : — I wish to inform you that I am 
often reviled and compared to you, as if you were the wickedest person 
on earth and I the next. This strengthens my hopes of your salvation; 



THE THREE MARYS. Oj 

for you are the unhappiest man I ever knew — a rebel against the King 
of kings and Lord of lords, and unworthy me, the happiest person I 
have ever seen, to be exalted thus, to have God for my father and 
mother, sister and brother. Oh, glorious concourse to converse with 
while traveling through this unfriendly world ! A friend always pres- 
ent to help in time of need ! When I am sick, He makes me well in 
body and mind. Blessed am I forever more : a child of that kingdom 
that contains all things, yes, joint-heir through Christ Jesus, my Lord and 
my God. Come now and be a son to the King of heaven and earth, a 
subject of His glorious government. Oh, what a glorious character you 
might be, living in honor of your Creator ! But, oh, it is awful to 
think of the opportunities you have had bestowed upon you, and the 
use you have made of them — to destroy yourself forever. Oh, what a 
mercy that you are yet alive ! Call, I beseech of you, on Jesus; He is 
willing to save the vilest that call upon Him. Oh, turn and be happy 
forever more. I have seen your thread, and it is almost spun. A few 
more days, and the day will close forever. 

" May the great Strength of Israel add His blessing. 

" From your friend in Christ ; out of Him He is a consuming fire. 

11 Mary T. Graft." 

" Alexander Ogle, Sr." 

The following, of an ungiven date and to an un- 
named person, has also conversion for its object : 

"Dear Sir : — I hope it is my duty to say a few things to you. I 
wish I could commence with saying, My Dear Friend. This I dare not 
presume till I see you bowing in subjection to the will of that Holy Be- 
ing who sees us now and is judging your thoughts. These I can not 
know. He says, 'Son, give me thy heart.' Then He will manifest 
Himself to you in the character of Jesus, the Savior of lost man, the 
chiefest among ten thousand and altogether lovely. In and through 
His name we comprehend the fullness of the Godhead bodily. By 
being reconciled to Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, we have 
peace with God our Father and enjoy His favor which is before all the 
world. 

"Jesus says, ' Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself 
and take up his cross and follow me ; for whosoever will lose his life, 
for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. For what shall it 
profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul ; or 
what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? Whosoever, therefore, 



g2 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

shall be ashamed of me and my word in this adulterous and sinful gen- 
eration, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh 
in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels.' 

"I behold you as on the tempestuous ocean of life, tossed to and 
fro, and in danger of being captured every day by the enemy who is the 
devil and prince of darkness, who works in the children of disobedi- 
ence. This fact is needful for you to know, whether you are a subject 
of Christ's kingdom or a subject of the prince of darkness. We have 
but two masters to serve : the one has the fullness of all things to give, 
the other is the prince of the air — he can only deceive. The wages of 
sin is disgrace and eternal death. 

" We must persuade you to know that it is an honor to be a subject 
of the government of the King of kings, and to be a joint-heir through 
Christ to that kingdom that contains all things to make us happy here 
and forever. Remember Jesus says, ' He that rejecteth me, and receiv- 
eth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have 
spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.' The time is Come 
that the word must not be trifled with. It must be believed and obeyed, 
and we shall be happy in the enjoyment of that word. It is the truth 
and all in all." 

To another alien she wrote briefly thus : 

" Dear Sir : — I have taken this way to converse with you on account 
of the enemy of the cross of Christ. I wish to inform you that I have 
suffered more than tongue can tell, within two years, on your account. 
Nothing but your deliverance from your unhappy condition, nothing 
less than your compliance with the government of Jehovah, no, noth- 
ing short of your salvation can restore or cure the wound No, nothing 
ean satisfy the desire of my soul but this. M. t. g." 

How she ministered to members of the church in 
distress, may be learned from the following to Mrs. 
Fleming : 

"June 29, 1836. 

"When I hear an evil report on myself or any other person, I let 
it go in at one ear and out at the other. If it wounds my peace, I take 
it into my closet, and there I find a balm for every wound. Or, if I see 
that it will profit my neighbors, body or soul, I carry it to them in a 
seemly manner, and look to the Father of lights to add His blessing. 
In this way I have peace with God and all mankind." 






THE THREE MARYS. 93 

Every new convert was remembered by an admon- 
itory epistle. The only one of the kind at hand is 
addressed to Miss Louise E. Ogle, daughter of ' ' Aunt 
Charlotte," now the wife of Mr. Ed. Scull, editor of 
the Somerset Herald, and written July 15, 1844, or pos- 
sibly 1845. ^ reads thus: 

" Dear Friend ': — Remember the vows you have taken upon you, 
and the Lord you have confessed. Consider the value of time, for we 
can place no just estimate upon it. We must improve it while it is 
day. It is an honor to be a follower of the Lamb of God, that taketh 
away the sin of the world. It behooves me to write to all 
of the dear youth who have professed before angels and 
men to be members of His kingdom, members of His 
house — of His church, which is His body, the fullness of Him 
that filleth all in all. Glory be to Jesus, our Lord and Redeemer ; 
we will reflect on His glorious character. It fills the heavens 
and the earth with His divine presence who is always watching 
over His children to do them good. Oh, yes, every moment. Even 
now our very thoughts are before Him. Glory be to our God and 
King ! He sees your thoughts now ; them I can not know, but this 
we can all know : to know Him aright is light and life eternal. It 
was for the enjoyment of this glorious truth that the merchant man, 
seeking goodly pearls, when he had found one pearl of great price, went 
and sold all that he had and bought it. Oh, yea, the favor of God is 
of more value than all this world's goods ; for we brought nothing 
into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And hav- 
ing food and raiment, let us therewith be content. 

" If all the dear disciples were watching one another, to provoke 
unto love and to good works, and exhorting one another to walk in 
the way, the truth and the life as it is in Jesus, our Lord and Redeemer, 
all would be well. 

" May the Lord add His blessing, is the prayer of your dear 
friend, " Mary T. Graft." 

" To Miss Louisa Ogle." 

If a member of the church or an alien who had 
been in the habit of attending the gatherings for wor- 
ship absented himself, he was pretty sure of receiving 



94 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

a prompter to duty in the shape of a letter from Mary- 
Graft. In the absence of a sample letter addressed to 
a derelict member, part of a long one written to such 
an alien is here given : 

"Somerset, God's House, May 20, 1845. 

"Dear Sir: — This is to inform you that we noticed you to absent 
yourself from the House that God gave us to worship Him in with 
our bodies and our spirits which are His. It is free to all who fear 
God. The friends of the Lord or His disciples are pleased to see you 
always there. Mr. Kimmell would not forbid you from obedience ; no, 
not for all the world. Your soul is of more value than the whole 
world. Only remember (thou God seest us) God's blessed Book teaches 
us that the fear of Him is the beginning of wisdom. Let us hear the 
conclusion of the whole matter : Fear God and keep His command- 
ments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every 
work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or 
whether it be evil; in the day when God shall judge the secrets of 
men by Jesus Christ " Mary T. Graft." 

"To Th. Cummins." 

To a young man away from home and starting in 
life, she wrote : 

"Somerset, Pa., Feb. 17, 1846. 

" My Dear Charles: — I promised your dear mother, some time 
ago, that I would write to you and send you a tract. Oh, remember 
that we can place no value on time. Improve it to the glory of God, 
my child, and all will be well forever. You know that God's Book 
teaches us that they that hunger and thirst after riches shall never be 
satisfied with riches, for the more one gets the more he shall want ; 
and he that hungers and thirsts after silver or gold shall never be satis- 
fied with silver nor gold, for the more he gets the more he shall want. 
But Jesus says. ' Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after 
righteousness; for they shall be filled.' Glory be to God our Saviour, 
our Lord and Redeemer. I pray that He may reign in and over all the 
dear disciples throughout the land; that they may be quickened and 
made alive to know Him aright, which is light and eternal life. They 
that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish 
and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition." 






THE THREE MARYS. 95 

A letter of condolence shall be the last one cited. 
It is to Benj. Martin, Jr., of Brush Creek, Bedford 
County, Pennsylvania, a brother's son, upon the 
death of that brother: 

"Somerset, Pa., Jan, 13, 1832. 

"My Dear Nephew: — With your long-looked-for letter before me, 
I acknowledge that I am thankful to you for the same. Such long 
silence created sorrow. I have written six or seven letters to my dear 
relations since your dear father's death, and have received one from 
Sister Anna, and a few days ago- one from her son Jacob, which I have 
endeavored to answer. I expect you will see it. 

" It gives me unspeakable joy to see you are thirsting after 
righteousness. We are to remember Jesus in all our difficulties, 
lest we should weary and faint by the way. He says, Blessed 
are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness ; for they shall 
be filled. He is the way, the truth, and the life of every child 
of His heavenly Father. We must remember that if we lack wisdom, 
we must ask it of Him who giveth liberally and upbraideth not. 
Again, Ye are of more value than many sparrows. 

"My dear young friend, we can not justly make any excuse that 
will satisfy the soul. But to obey the truth begets such a fullness of 
all things and produces so much peace that all the world is nothing in 
comparison to our acquaintance with Jesus. In and through that 
glorious Name we comprehend the fullness of the Godhead bodily, 
revealing to us father, mother, sister and brother — a friend always 
present in time of need. There is nothing to be compared with a 
child of God. Ye are the salt of the earth, ye are the light of the 
world, etc. We are to remember if the salt has lost its savor, it is 
good for nothing. We are to let our light shine before men, that they 
may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven. 

"The great Teacher of Israel will be mouth and wisdom. If we 
want instruction, enter the closet ; if we want comfort, enter the 
the closet ; if we wish to be exalted, we must humble ourselves before 
our God, and He will exalt us in due time. I am well satisfied that 
you are in the place where you are, and hope that it is the will of 
your heavenly Father that it should be so. Take the testimony of 
Jesus and His apostles, and make that the man of your counsel, and it 
will guide you in the straight and narrow way that gives peace while 
traveling through this unfriendly world, and will guide into the king- 



g6 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

dom of glory where we shall enjoy the smiles of our God in a world 
without end. 

" May the Lord be pleased to bless what has been said. Amen. 
" Your dear Aunt, " Mary T. Graft." 

Here are eleven letters, about all the whole ones 
left from the ravages of time, and several of them 
written in Mary Graft's seventy-third year. They are 
given exactly in her own words, being changed only to 
some extent in the punctuation and capitalization. 
Whence all this ability ? Hardly more than two centu- 
ries before her birth there were peers of far-famed 
England in plenty who could neither write nor read. 
Truly the power of sanctified grace is great ! And pow- 
erful is the exhortation thence arising to the more 
favored modern daughters of mother Eve. 

Mary Graft always rose, and had others rise, by 
candle light. Her first business was in the closet of 
prayer, where she laid before the Lord the entire com- 
ing day's work and remembered the members of the 
church individually and aloud. Ofttimes she would 
shout in her private devotions, and seldom engaged in 
them without copious tears. Her favorite morning 
hymn was : 

"And did my Saviour use to pray 
Before the light unvailed the day, 

And shall I backward be? 
No, dearest Lord, forbid the thought, 
Help me to fight as Jesus fought 

Each foe that hinders me." 



While the work begun and nurtured by these women 
is still to be further pursued, we thus take formal leave 
of Mary Graft, the daily writer ; of Mary Ogle, the 



THE THREE MARYS. 97 

polished logician before whom lawyers and ministers 
quailed; and of Mary Morrison, the "gem of quiet 
ray serene." Their toils are ended, but their labors 
abide. The Providence that called each one Mary, the 
Guiding Hand that yoked them in fellowship, and the 
Holy Spirit that anointed them for so grand a work, 
has in them answered the double question, " May 
woman teach ?" and, ' ' What can she do ?" 



CHAPTER XL 

WOMAN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

So much of this "over true tale" has already 
hinged on woman's work, and so much more will yet 
be briefly said about female teachers in day and Sunday- 
school, mission workers, and such like, that one natu- 
rally asks, How does all this agree with sundry utter- 
ances in the New Testament, especially with certain 
passages from the widowed Paul ? Requests, too, have 
been numerous that the author's study of the matter be 
somewhere set down. For this, perhaps, no more 
suitable place can be found in the present series of 
chapters than right here, when the three Marys are so 
fresh in mind. 

Abstractly considered — that is, apart from any 
thought of certain passages of Scripture, this working 
of women seems all right enough, but the moment 
those passages are named, we seem ' ' to weave a 
tangled web," and to be in the midst of forbidden 
ground. Is it so, then, that our " common sense " and 
the Scriptures are at war? Or have we failed to do the 
Bible justice? There is room here for a fair-sized 
volume of discussion, and yet a few pages can give us 

9 8 



WOMAN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 99 

the key to the situation. If we but learn to distinguish 
between general principles in their untrammeled work- 
ings and particular applications of those principles 
under special or transient circumstances, all will be 
clear and easy. 

Thus, it is a general principle that " ye were bought 
with a price ; become not bondservants to men " (I. 
Cor. vii. 23), and yet, in order that temporary social 
conditions be not handled with violent and injurious 
haste, so that in pulling up the tares we pull up also 
the wheat, it was also well to advise, ' ' Wast thou 
called being a bondservant? care not for it" (I. Cor. 
vii. 21), and, ''Servants (bondservants), be obedient 
unto them that according to the flesh are your masters, 
with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as unto 
Christ" (Eph. vi. 5). Again, as a general principle 
Paul asserted that he " was free from all men," and yet, 
in adaptation to temporary conditions, he said, "I 
brought myself under bondage to all, that I might gain 
the more. And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I 
might gain Jews ; to them that are under the law, 
as under law, not being myself under the law, that I 
might gain them that are under the law ; to them that 
are without law, as without law, not being without law 
to God, but under law to Christ, that I might gain 
them that are without law. To the weak I became 
weak, that I might gain the weak : I am become all 
things to all men, that I may by all means save some. 
And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I may be joint 
partaker thereof " (I. Cor. ix. 19-23). 

Must we, for the sake of duly honoring these subor- 
dinate passages just named, insist on the continuance 
of slavery and the dominance of Judaistic conditions? 



IOO TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

Or, are they not best honored in being permitted to 
die, as so evidently intended, at the hands of general 
principles that are antagonistic to bondage of every 
kind? 

What, then, is the general, fundamental principle 
of the New Covenant relating to the sexes ? Paul states 
it thus: " There can be no male and female " in Christ 
Jesus, just as " there can be neither Jew nor Greek" 
and "there can be neither bond nor free" (Gal. iii. 28) 
under the gospel. Yet here, of course, as in the case 
of every general principle, there may be and are modi- 
fications due to subordinate principles and temporary 
conditions, so that there may be a wise realization of 
"first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the 
ear" (Mark iv. 28). But of these modifications further 
on. 

In full accordance with this general principle relat- 
ing to sex in the New Covenant, the general law for 
disseminating the gospel and its benefits is stated thus 
by Paul to Timothy: "And the things which thou hast 
heard from me among many witnesses, the same commit 
thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also " 
(II. Tim. ii. 2). 

The verb here rendered "teach" is of common 
occurrence and is the same as that in the Great Com- 
mission, "Teaching them to observe all things whatso- 
ever I commanded you " (Matt, xxviii. 20), and that 
where the Saviour "taught " the multitudes, as in Matt. 
vii. 39 and Mark x. 1. It is also used where the apos- 
tles "taught" in the temple (Acts v. 21). Its cognate 
noun describes even elders in their official capacity, 
"pastor and teachers" (Eph. iv. 11), and the Saviour in 
His mission, "thou art a teacher come from God" 






WOMAN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. lOI 

(John. iii. 2). If, then, females are included in the 
above passage from Timothy, they have ample war- 
rant to " teach " anything that under the gospel needs 
to be taught. They stand on an equality with males. 

Now, so far as the English term "men" in this 
passage is concerned, it may be an open question 
whether it is to be taken in its specific sense of de- 
noting a male as opposed to a female, or understood in 
the generic sense of any member of the human family 
without regard to sex, as in the sentence, "It is ap- 
pointed unto men once to die" (Heb. ix. 27). No 
such question, however, can be raised over the original 
word employed by the inspired penman. The Greeks 
had separate terms, never confounded, for each of the 
two thoughts. Man, in the specific sense, they ex- 
pressed by dpyjp, aneer, and in the generic sense, by 
avdpcojroz, anthroopos. It is the latter term that Paul uses 
in the passage under consideration. Hence the Latin 
translates it by homo, not vir; and the German, by 
Menschy not Mann — which terms in both of these lan- 
guages are just as radically distinguished as those of 
the Greek, and just as clearly and strongly make it the 
right and duty of the "faithful" female as of the 
"faithful" male to "teach." 

That such is the fair force of the word rendered 
" men " in II. Tim. ii. 2, might further be made plain 
to the commonest reader by a volume of citations 
where the same word occurs in the original. Two, 
however, must suffice. In the Septuagint version 
(Greek) of Gen. v. 1, 2, we read, "This is the book of 
the generation of men; . . . male and female 
made he them." Again, in the Greek New Testa- 
ment: "The law has dominion over man during such 



102 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

time as (man) may live ; for the married woman is 
bound by law to the living husband " (Rom. vii. i, 2). 
In the first of these passages the word man (anthroopos) 
is expressly said to comprehend "male and female," 
and in the second it is used of "woman," and of 
course in virtue of her being a human being. Substi- 
tuting this scripturally-given equivalent in place of 
the term used in II. Tim. ii. 2, we have, in plain 
English, ' ' And the things which thou hast heard from 
me, the same commit thou to faithful males and females, 
who shall be able to teach others also." And thus, in 
whatsoever way males are here empowered to "teach," 
females are also so empowered. 

In full accord with this general law was the New 
Testament practice, wherever circumstances would per- 
mit. Women were endowed with the gift of prophecy : 
" Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, 

yea, on my servants and on my handmaidens in 
those days will I pour forth of my Spirit ; and they 
shall prophesy" (Acts ii. 17, 18). This is a quotation 
from Joel, and marks the advance in the New Covenant 
over the Old. And so the four daughters of the evan- 
gelist Philip "did prophesy" (Acts xxi. 9). "But he 
that prophesieth speaketh unto men (males only?!) 
edification, and comfort, and consolation " (I. Cor. 
xiv. 3). This, therefore, women did as well as men. 
And as "spiritual gifts" were temporary qualifications 
to be superseded by the normal development of natural 
talents, in so far as they can serve the same end, this 
work on the part of women was meant to be perpetual. 
For this reason God gave them talents, and not that 
they should be " hid under a bushel." 

Priscilla and her husband Aquila labored together 



WOMAN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. IO3 

in spreading - abroad the gospel, and she with such nota- 
ble efficiency that three times out of the five mentions 
of their names hers is placed first. Apollos was "a 
learned man" and a "mighty" preacher, though still 
in the dark as to some vital points in the New Cov- 
enant. " But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, 
they took him unto them, and (they) expounded unto 
him the way of God more carefully " (Acts xviii. 26). 
Both "expounded," for the verb is plural in the 
Greek, and the woman took the lead in "teaching" 
this man ! 

So also we read, " I exhort Euodia, and I exhort 
Syntyche, to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yea, 
I beseech thee also, true yokefellow, help these 
women, for they labored with me in the gospel" (Phil, 
iv. 2, 3). Here are female gospelers still further com- 
missioned to promote the gospel with one soul, and a 
man is asked to be their servant ! They were the 
"Marys" of Philippi. 

Such also at Rome were Tryphaena and Tryphosa, 
1 ' who labor (present tense, work going on) in the 
Lord;" and " Persis the beloved, who labored much in 
the Lord" (Rom xvi. 12). 

Pliny was appointed Propraetor of Bithynia and 
Pontus by the Emperor Trajan, a. d. 103, and died 
a. d. 107. In the discharge of his office, a part of 
which was to maintain the pagan faith, he persecuted 
Christians, and wrote to his chief, "Having heard so 
much, I deemed it the more necessary to ascertain the 
truth by putting to the torture two women-servants who 
were called deaconesses (ministrae)." There were, then, 
deaconesses in that early age of the church not far from 



104 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

the place where the apostle John had so recently died, 
as there continued to be in the Greek Church up to the 
thirteenth century. This tact both agrees with and is a 
comment on Romans xvi. I, 2: "I commend unto 
you Phcebe our sister, who is a servant (margin and 
Greek, deaconess) of the church that is at Cenchreae : 
that ye receive her in the Lord, worthily of saints, and 
that ye assist her in whatsoever matter she may have 
need of you." The word here rendered "servant" in 
the body of the text and " deaconess " in the margin, is 
the identical word that is rendered ' ' deacons " in I. Tim. 
iii. 8 and Phil. i. I, where it describes officers in the 
church, and so leaves no reasonable doubt of the official 
character of Phcebe. Hence we can understand why 
the whole church at Rome was by apostolic injunction 
placed at her command. Indeed, there is more in this 
word than people are commonly ready to receive. Out- 
side of the gospels it is used alone by Paul, and that 
twenty-two times. It is generally rendered ' ' minister " 
and is used to describe Christ in His w r ork (Rom. xv. 8 ; 
Gal. ii. 17), and the evangelist in his business, as in I. 
Tim. iv. 6; I. Thess. iii. 2; II. Cor. xi. 23 ; Eph. vi. 21 ; 
Col. iv. 7, and numerous other places. It is therefore 
by no means confined to (if ever in the epistles, when 
referring to Christians, it denotes) mere secular func- 
tions. Such an enlarged view of the scope of the word 
would justify the demands made by Paul of the Romans 
in behalf of Phcebe of Cenchreae, who had evidently 
gone on an important mission to them, similar, perhaps, 
to that of " deacon " Timothy to Ephesus (I. Tim. iv. 
6) or of "deacons" Paul and Apollos to Corinth (I. 
Cor. iii. 5). " Similar" is the word, for Timothy was 



WOMAN JN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 105 

a "deacon of Christ" while Phoebe was a "deaconess 
of the ch urch . " * 

Female deacons are provided for in I. Tim. iii. u, 
which in the Revision correctly reads, "Women in like 
manner must be grave, not slanderers, temporate, faith- 
ful in all things." Up to the time of the Reformation 
there were but two different views taken of this passage, 
namely, either that it speaks of women in general or 
else of deaconesses. Since then a third view has sprung 
up which makes them the wives of deacons, and the 
fourth view holds that they are both the wives of dea- 
cons and at the same time also deaconesses. But they 
were certainly not merely women in general, for they 
are named in the midst of the discussion of church 
officers, a most inappropriate place for such mention, 
to say nothing of the officer-like qualifications demanded 
of them. Nor were they mere wives of officers, as 
Calvin first and others after him held, for in that case 
the passage would make requirements of the wives of 
deacons (for it is in the discussion of deacons that this 
mention occurs) that it does not make of the wives of 
elders. This view is also comdemned by the Vulgate 
Latin which translates by mulieres, women, and not 
uxores, wives. So also Wy cliff renders it "wymmen." 
They were, hence, female deacons, deaconesses, such as 
Phoebe was. If at the same time it had been intended 
to say that they were also the wives of deacons this 
could have been easily done by some qualifying word. 

* "The term deacon originally included all public servants whatever, though 
now most commonly confined to one or two classes; and improperly, no doubt, to 
those only who attend to the mere temporal interests of the community." — A. 
Campbell, Christian System, p. 79. 

'• From this passage (Rom. xvi. 1), as well as from I. Tim. iii. 11, it appears 
that females were constituted deaconesses in the primitive church." — A. Camp- 
bell, Millennial Harbinger, 1835, p. 507, note. 



I06 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

The fact that this was not done, leaves us free to choose 
deaconesses from any proper source. They may be 
selected from the wives of deacons or that of other 
married men, or from such "virgins" as Paul praised 
in I. Cor. vii., saying, " She that is unmarried is careful 
for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both 
in body and in spirit " (ver. 34), or even from such aged 
widows as had, by their past lives, given evidence of 
fitness for special work (I. Tim. v. 10). 

Here, then, we have the outline of woman's work 
in the New Economy. It remains now that we look at 
the limitations spoken of in passages still unnoticed. 

First, the fact of marriage places limitations upon 
woman more or less restricted according as her husband 
is narrow or broad in his views and attainments. She 
may chafe under this yoke, especially when it is 
unduly galling, but she took it on herself, and so has 
none other to blame. Her marriage was like the trees 
choosing a king in Jotham's parable : " And the bram- 
ble said unto the tree, If in truth ye anoint me king 
over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow; 
and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and 
devour the cedars of Lebanon " (Judges ix. 15). The 
proper cure is prevention : choose no bramble as king, 
and no inconvenient humbling will have to be done. 
In the marriage compact, nature meant that an average 
woman should be assistant to, the "help meet for, " an 
average husband. If any woman be above the average, 
let her choose a husband equally far above the average, 
or suffer the consequences of her folly. Such examples 
are needed to teach others the way of the transgressor. 
Besides, the duties of maternity, which, as wife, woman 
has no right to adjure, may largely absorb her time 



WOMAN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 10/ 

and energies. If so, that is her first duty, and "she 
shall be saved through the rearing of children," if she 
do it so effectually that they grow up in the faith. 
Moreover, the family, in the Bible view of it, is a unit, 
of which the husband is the natural head. The single 
woman, if of age, or the widow, may justly claim the 
right and recognition of herself as a unit, but not so 
the wife, save by her husband's permission. Both in 
Church and State is the family God's unit. It is this, 
and nothing more, that Paul means in I. Tim. ii. 1 1 — 1 5 . 
(Compare also I. Cor. xi. 3-16.) The words in this 
passage rendered "woman" and "man " are the only 
ones in the Greek New Testament ever rendered 
"wife" and "husband" ; and the context shows that 
they have this force here, whether so rendered or not. 
"I permit not a woman (a wife) to teach nor to have 
dominion over a man (a husband)," does not refer to 
teaching in general, which we have already seen 
woman may do, but to such teaching of the husband 
and domineering over him as would, of her own mo- 
tion and usurpation, constitute her the head of the 
family. If she have knowledge that her husband does 
not possess, and he is willing to learn of her, there is 
nothing in this passage to forbid her imparting it, but 
every reason outside of it for her to do so. And if her 
husband consent that she shall assume any public 
work for which her talent and ability may fit her, it is 
perfectly proper for her to do so ; and this the more, if 
the church specially call her. Then, if any individual 
Apollos or church as a whole place themselves under 
her tuition, it is, by every principle of Scripture and 
by every intuition of our nature, right that she should 



I08 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

impart the information at her command, and in what- 
ever way that shall prove most efficient. 

In the second place, there may be deep-rooted 
social prejudices and usages into whose face it is not 
wise to fly. Often the best and speediest way to 
11 conquer" is to " stoop." God gives His light grad- 
ually. First the twilight, then the rising sun, and 
lastly the fervent, glaring noonday. The whole drift of 
the Sermon on the Mount is to the effect that a more 
searching morality and a completer righteousness than 
formerly obtained was now to begin. The principles 
that formerly were but partially applied in their 
statutes, must now be permitted to grow to their 
utmost limits. And yet, owing to the poor soil that 
we are, how gradually and how little have they grown 
even up to the very present ! 

In the Gentile world, not indeed so much among the 
Romans, but more particularly among the Greeks, and 
especially at Corinth, none but a wanton or licentious 
woman was ever seen with short hair and unveiled face, 
or ever put herself forward in a public meeting. This 
enforced domestication kept the pure woman in such 
ignorance that almost any kind of a husband knew a 
thousandfold more than she. For a woman in that age 
and those countries to ask questions was to attract 
undue notice and to offer her virtue for sale. However 
right in itself, it would have been the greatest folly and 
sin to have directly and openly defied these customs. 
Matters may be lawful that expediency forbids (I. Cor. 
x. 23). For this reason even the Jewish law, which on 
occasion permitted Miriam, the sister of Moses, to 
lead the triumphal chorus, Deborah to be prophetess 
and civil judge, and Huldah to be both prophetess and 



WOMAN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. IO9 

king Josiah's instructor, yet as a rule consigned woman 
to privacy. It was in view of this condition of affairs 
that Paul wrote I. Cor. xiv. 34-36. The direction, 
however, concerns only the public meetings of the 
church, when not only "the whole church " came 
together "into one place," but when also "the unbe- 
liever" was present. See the chapter at length, and 
compare also chap. xi. 17-22. But even at Corinth in 
the smaller and more private meetings for prayer, ex- 
hortation and praise, when only disciples were present, 
it was right enough for such women as were gifted to 
exercise their talents before the men, provided only 
they did it with due decorum. See I. Cor. xi. 2-16. 

But to enforce the special limitations, above consid- 
ered, upon the gospel-leavened age and upon the changed 
conditions of our American society, to the neglect of 
those higher, general principles, would be to completely 
veil every woman that appears in public, banish female 
teachers from public and Sunday-schools, retire female 
editors, curse the finest lips out of the temperance 
reform and all benevolent enterprises, annihilate female 
missionary societies, missions, and missionaries, and 
invite paganism again to our doors. Under such per- 
version of the Scriptures the achievement of the three 
Marys would have been utterly impossible, and the 
work of the gospel would go halt adown the ages, re- 
ducing that "golden age," the coming millennium, to 
a mad chimera. No, no ; let woman be what God 
originally designed her to be — a true "help, meet for 
man," not alone in secular activities, but in all the 
highest, holiest, divinest pursuits of the soul. 



CHAPTER XII. 



A TRIO OF MALES. 



It would be impossible, within reasonable limits, to 
give suitable accounts of the many private persons in 
the Somerset church having a just claim to such 
notice. It must suffice, therefore, to select three men, 
as three women have been given. Nor is this selection 
difficult, since the Hon. Charles Ogle, Judge F. M. 
Kimmell, and Judge Jeremiah S. Black are such distin- 
guished names as to be household words in both the Com- 
monwealth and the Nation, and were, besides, among 
the early as well as lifelong members of this church. 

Charles Ogle, son of Mary and Alexander Ogle, Sr., 
was born at Stoystown, Somerset county, Pennsylvania, 
in 1798, and had a happy blending of the characteris- 
tics of both parents. The reader is in somewhat ex- 
tensive possession of the mother's side, but a word or 
two more about the Ogles may well be given. They 
were of Maryland origin, where, under the old Proprie- 
tary Government, Samuel Ogle was appointed Governor 
in the years 1732, 1735 and 1747; and Benjamin Ogle 
was elected to the same office in 1798, under the consti- 
tution of 1776. There are still many of the name in their 



A TRIO OF MALES. I I I 

native Frederick county, as well as quite a number in 
Alleghany county. The Somerset, Pennsylvania, branch 
of the family, however, is by common concession the 
most notable. Of this branch Gen. Alexander Ogle, 
the husband of Mary, is the ancestor. He was a man 
of six feet two inches high, finely proportioned, with 
some depth of chest and breadth of shoulders, and was 
the acknowledged "great man " of the mountain world 
in which he lived. " No eye ever caught him weary, 
listless, or vacant ; he took no holidays, nor ever knew 
those remissions of engagement which ordinary people 
indulge in at the beginnings and finishings of their 
undertakings." Tonic and sanguine best answer to the 
strength and fervor of his temperament, a term which 
has been defined as "a condition of physical organiza- 
tion, a make of muscle, nerve and blood-vessel, and a 
manner and proportion in their combination." He was 
a born leader, and so found polities an inviting field. 
Indeed, he was the father of the Democratic party in 
this region, the prime mover of the first wagon-road 
over the mountains to Pittsburgh, and the steadfast 
friend of education. He had an uncommon amount of 
that sense called common, because rare. No lawyer him- 
self, he yet had an office to which both parties to a case 
would resort for advice, and, no matter who was their 
lawyer, would go on with their suit or stop it according 
as the General advised. Such was the lineage and such 
the father of Charles Ogle. 

Charles Ogle stood six feet in his stockings, was of 
somewhat slender frame, had piercing black eyes and 
dark brown hair, was quick of motion, fluent in speech, 
and a natural mimic, but dignified. He looked like his 
mother, but partook of the nature of both parents, It 



112 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

required an occasion to light the fire of his nature, but 
then it rose and swept on like an ocean of flame 
through a forest of pine. Like all men of his day, 
except the Dunkards and Ornish, he shaved clean. His 
schooling was somewhat thorough, including German, 
French, Latin and Greek. In those days, when as yet 
Greek lexicons were defined only in Latin, the Roman 
tongue held the gateway to Greece, and was the door 
through which he accompanied Homer to the siege of 
Troy. He was educated for the bar, and became an 
eminent and successful lawyer. The most competent 
judge, both by reason of intimate personal knowledge 
and extensive acquaintance abroad, Jeremiah S. Black, 
said of Chauncey Forward and Charles Ogle, that as 
lawyers they had no equals in their day, and certainly 
no superiors anywhere in the United States. 

Like his father, Charles Ogle was a Democrat, and 
in 1824, and again in 1828, worked and voted for Jack- 
son in the name of "retrenchment and reform." But 
as the Masonic question loomed up in politics, he be- 
came the chief warrior among the Anti- Masons, so 
that for a time he was even obliged to have a body- 
guard to insure personal safety. That warfare having 
spent its fury by 1836, he then gave his strength as a 
National Republican to the cause of Gen. Wm. Henry 
Harrison as against Van Buren, and under the title of 
Whig renewed and won the battle for the same leader 
in 1840. He sat in the House of Representatives* 

* Benton, in his "Thirty Years' View," but little more than mentions 
Ogle's name, and so apparently contradicts the rank here assigned to him. But the 
reason of Benton's silence may find an explanation in the fact that Ogle convicted 
him of having written, for political purposes, to the Richmond Enquirer, under 
date of Jan. i, 1827, as follows: "This being the day on which the President's 
house is thrown open to all visitors, I went, among others, to pay my respects t« 
him, or, rather, I should fairly confess, I went to see the East Room, for the fur* 



A TRIO OF MALES. 113 

from 1837 to 1 841, and was reelected for the Congress 
of that fall, but prevented by death from taking his 
seat. On the floor of that House, April 14, 1840, he 
delivered his celebrated ''Spoon Speech," which in 
different languages went like wildfire throughout the 
land, and elected Harrison. The House being in the 
Committee of the Whole on the bill making appropria- 
tions for the civil and diplomatic expenses of the gov- 
ernment for the year 1840, Mr. Ogle moved to amend 
the bill by striking out the clause which appropriated 
three thousand six hundred and sixty dollars for alter- 
ations and repairs of the President's house and furni- 
ture, etc., etc. He considered it a very important 
item, not as to the amount, but as to the principle in- 
volved in it of wasting the people's hard earnings for 
the extravagant benefit of a public servant already well 
salaried. Then for nearly five hours he showed from 
original vouchers and public records the enormous ex- 
travagance of the White House, from its most princely 
outlays down to its "golden spoons." The next day, 
in two shorter speeches, he considered the aristocratic 
doings of Van Buren and the life and public services of 
Gen. Harrison. The three speeches together took 
some ten hours or more in their delivery, showed such 
a wealth of information, such a diligence of research, 
and such a striking way of putting things, that as 



nishing of which we had voted twenty-five thousand dollars at the last session of 
Congress. I was anxious to see how that amount of furniture could he stowed 
away in a single room, and my curiosity was fully satisfied. It was truly a 
gorgeous sight to behold, but had too much the look of regal magnificence to be 
perfectly agreeable to my old republican feelings." Instead of this being the 
case, Ogle showed that the U. S. Telegraph of Aug. i, 1829, Jackson's official 
organ, represents the East Room as then still " unfurnished," and that the New 
York Courier and Enquirer of November, 1829, speaks of that room as being 
"full of cobwebs, a few old chairs, lumbering benches, broken glass," and needing 
still to be furnished. 



I 14 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

campaign documents they were effectual, and are to 
this day treasured by Whigs of the olden time. On 
the stump also, which he took in Harrison's interests, 
his eloquence and effectiveness ranked above that of the 
"irresistible Tom Corwin." Judge F. M. Kimmell 
pronounces Ogle "the most eloquent man I ever lis- 
tened to." 

The exposure of that campaign to all kinds of 
weather settled in quick consumption, and caused his 
death on May 10, 1841, just as his sun was reaching 
the fairest parts of his skies. 

At home he was so thronged with business that his 
team would often stand for hours before his office before 
he could get away to drive to his large farm near town, 
his furnace near Forwardstown, or his coal lands along 
the Alleghenies. 

He was joined in marriage to Emily Posthlethwaite, 
sister of Eld. Wm. H. Posthlethwaite, a woman of 
rare gifts and talents, and a most estimable lady, who 
became a Christian with him at the great meeting of 
1829, and who survived him many years to bless the 
church with her noble example and Christian activity. 

Ogle's house was the welcome home of preachers 
and the place where country people generally found 
ready hospitality. The seekers of charity did not go 
empty from his door, and the poor knew where to find 
a benefactor. Money for the spread of the gospel and 
other needs of the church was not publicly named in 
those days, but men like Ogle quietly put their hands 
into their pockets and met every need. Save on extra- 
ordinary occasions, he took no public part in religious 
meetings, but rejoiced in every triumph of the gospel. 
He clapped his hands for joy, and said, " Now we will 



i 



A TRIO OF MALES. I 1 5 

have a pastor indeed," when so noble a friend of his as 
Chauncey Forward determined to devote himself to 
the preaching of the Word in and about Somerset. 
Once only he attempted to lead in public prayer, but 
found his best endeavor so self-embarrassing before his 
great conception of the Infinite One, that never again 
could he be induced to a like public effort. 

In his death a star of no mean magnitude was lost 
from the earthly firmament at the time of rising into its 
finest glory. But the luster of such a life and name 
found on the records of Christianity can but gild them 
with ennobling beauty. 

Judge Francis M. Kimmell was born in the village of 
Berlin, Somerset county, Pennsylvania, in the year 
1816. He is of medium height and heavy set, has 
light hair and blue eyes. His father, Jacob Kimmell, 
kept store, and served twenty years as Justice of the 
Peace. The family belonged to the (German) Reformed 
Church, and before the father's death, Frank brought 
the mother and most of the other children over to the 
Disciple faith. Of this family are all the Kimmells 
now connected with the Somerset church, including 
Miss Belle Kimmell, sister of the Judge, and so well 
and favorably known throughout the State. While at 
home, Frank Kimmell received only a common school 
education. In January, 1836, and again in 1839, Jacob 
Kimmell was commissioned Register and Recorder and 
Clerk of Orphans' Court, and sent his son to fill these 
offices, which brought him to Somerset on February 4, 
1836, where he remained till March 20, 1862, when he 
moved to Chambersburg, Pa. There he still lives, but 
holds his membership here, there being no Christian 
church at that place. 



Il6 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

Constantly coming in contact with Disciples here, 
he could not help weighing their plea and finally ex- 
pressing his entire assent thereto by being immersed in 
April, 1839. Wesley Lanphear boarded at the same 
place with him, and was perhaps the first to give him 
light on the matter, though Forward finally baptized 
him. In May, 1841, he was married to Mary Ogle, 
daughter of "Aunt Charlotte," and granddaughter of 
the Mary Ogle. His wife died in September, 1843, 
and the babe seven months afterwards. In 1844, he 
married Phcebe Jane, daughter of Chauncey Forward, 
who still shares life with him. Of this last union there 
are five children on earth and one in heaven. 

Being desirous of becoming a lawyer, Mr. Kimmell 
snatched enough time from his clerkship to read law 
with Jeremiah S. Black, and was examined by Chaun- 
cey Forward and Charles Ogle, being admitted to 
practice March 19, 1839. He became one of the most 
able and active members of the Somerset bar. In 
185 1, he ran as an independent Whig candidate for 
President Judge of the sixteenth judicial district, then 
composed of Franklin, Fulton, Bedford, and Somerset 
counties. He was elected by a large majority, and 
served the full term of ten years, winning an enviable 
reputation. Cases appealed from his decision were 
seldom reversed by the Superior Court. While yet a 
student of law, he one day ventured to take a seat in- 
side of the bar, during a session of court, and an old 
lawyer abruptly asked him what he was doing there. 
The answer came later on, when that same lawyer was 
glad to practice before him and call him "his honor." 

During all his stay at Somerset he took a lively and 
active interest in Christianity. When there was no 






A TRIO OF MALES. I \J 

regular preaching it was common for him to read a chap- 
ter of the Bible and comment on it, or deliver an ex- 
hortation. He was just in his element when outside of 
church-hours he could talk to any one about the Master 
and His cause He was often asked to exercise his 
talents aboad, but always declined. In the summer of 
1858, however, he consented to preach at Stoystown, 
provided N. B. Snyder and Edward Bevins would accom- 
pany him, the former to sing and the latter to pray. 
It was intended to have the meeting in the school-house, 
but Uncle Mike Zimmermann met the coming party 
and tendered them the Reformed meeting-house, which 
was packed to hear the Judge. Josiah H. Pisel, now 
one of the Somerset deacons, but then called " the 
wickedest man in Stoystown," whose wife had obeyed 
the Saviour in W. T. Moore's then recent meeting at 
Somerset, responded to the gospel invitation at the 
close of the Judge's sermon, and was baptized by Elder 
Bevins. Though the Judge never again went abroad to 
preach, he often felt strong promptings to do so. Thus 
in W. A. Belding's meeting, held here during June, 
1 86 1, the Judge was so wrought upon by the growing 
interest of the social meetings that he arose and said, 
" Bro. Belding, / will give myself to the preaching of 
the precious gospel." Yet he never did. His long legal 
occupation had become second nature, just as either a 
life of sin or righteousness tends to fixedness of character. 
"I have mingled much in the world," he writes, 
"and associated with all sorts of people, but the first 
place in my heart and memory is occupied by the peo- 
ple who comprised that [the Somerset] congregation ; 
and my hope is that when the summons comes for my 
exit, I shall rejoin them in eternity." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

A TRIO OF MALES CONTINUED. 

Jeremiah Sullivan Black was born January io, 1810, 
on a farm called Pleasant Glades, lying along the Bed- 
ford pike, seven miles east of Somerset. He was of 
Scotch-Irish and German ancestry. His father, Henry 
Black, had served as Justice of the Peace, Associate 
Judge of the county, had been a member of the State 
Legislature, and died in 1841, while filling the Whig 
seat in Congress vacated by the death of Charles Ogle. 

In personal appearance, as well as intellectually, J. 
S. Black was a giant. He was six feet high, weighed 
over two hundred pounds, had dark-brown hair, gray 
eyes, a prominent nose, and heavy, projecting eye- 
brows which gave to his forehead a somewhat receding 
appearance, though it was quite full. 

At the age of five he attended school, first at Storys- 
town, then at Berlin. He loved books, but hated the 
confinement of school, and with other little boys 
sought out nails from the ashes of a lightning-burnt 
barn, to put under the Berlin school-house to "draw 
the lightning" upon his prison. At twelve he at- 
tended the Somerset Academy, where he also learnt 
u8 



A TRIO OF MALES. I \g 

sufficient French to read and write it with some degree 
of ease. Here he developed some ambition, and did 
good work. Of course he could speak the "Pennsyl- 
vania Dutch," and was, to some extent, at home in 
German. Later on he attended a private academy at 
Brownsville, Fayette county, from which he graduated 
at sixteen, literally knowing all of Horace and most of 
Virgil by heart, which, with a self-made version of the 
former in prose and one in verse, he never forgot. In 
fact, he never forgot anything worth remembering. At 
that academy he also got a fair knowledge of the usual 
sciences and customary mathematics. Such titles in 
his library as Espy's "Philosophy of Storms," Dugald 
Stewart's "Philosophy of the Human Mind," Von 
Humboldt's "Aspects of Nature," Johnson's "Analy- 
sis of Soils," Smellie's "Philosophy of Natural His- 
tory," and Brewster's " Philosophy of Human Nature," 
show how through life he kept up this class of studies. 
Though he made a full hand on the farm, farming 
was not his taste. He preferred to become a physician, 
but his father decidedly advised against it. So at 
seventeen and a half he entered the law-office of the 
Hon. Chauncey Forward, at Somerset. At that time 
he had read and thoroughly knew the contents of all 
the books in his father's library, chiefly historical and 
religious, as well as all the books in the larger library 
of his grandfather Sullivan at "Rural Felicity," in 
Elklick township ; especially was he master of the his- 
torical portions of the Bible. The year and a half fol- 
lowing the Brownsville school, he put in on the classics 
and kindred matters as far as farm-labor would permit. 
Fven then he says : — 



120 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

" I was not wholly ignorant of law. I had come across the 
1 Trial of the Judges ' (the copy which I still have), and read with the 
utmost care all the speeches of counsel and all the formal proceedings, 
as well as the evidence. This happened when I was about sixteen, and 
I think now that I understood the case nearly as well as some of the 
Senators who voted the Judges guilty of high crimes and misde- 
meanors." 

Yet, as he stood in the presence of his great pre- 
ceptor, " blushing with consciousness of his own de- 
fects," he, in later years, described his feelings thus: 

" Everybody has heard, and many know, how great are the seems 
ing difficulties of the law to a new beginner. The sages of the science, 
Brocton and Coke and Blackstone, have described their first troubles 
vividly. The picture given of them by Warren in his ' Law Studies,' 
might drive a bold man to despair. I confess that my heart sunk 
within me when I looked at the catalogue of books and saw how many 
branches of abstruse learning were required to make up a lawyer. I 
did not then know the value of the general principles or at all compre- 
hend how legal problems could be solved by the application of funda- 
mental maxims. Whatever hope I had of mastering the science even 
to a small extent lay in the fact that others had succeeded in doing so 
— life was before me wherein to work — and labor vincit omnia. Mr. 
Forward knew that I needed encouragement, and he intended to give 
it, but his earliest lectures and conversations depressed me still more 
by the vastness of the knowledge which he himself possessed. He 
seemed to be talking to me from a height so great and inaccessible that 
I could never reach it. I made slow progress ; but I made some." 

It will be good reading to quote another para- 
graph: 

" It so happened that I never looked into Shakespeare till the sec- 
ond year of my study of the law. Then I read and re-read all the 
plays until I became perfectly familiar with them. It was to me almost 
a new world. I knew them so perfectly that I have not since read 
them. Milton disappointed me at first; but Paradise Lost took me like 
Niagara : it gradually filled me with a sense of its awful grandeur. 
General literature took me off from my regular studies a good deal, and 
gave me some distaste for Blackstone, Coke, Starkie and Chitty." 



A TRIO OF MALES. 121 

Yet he made such clean-cut progress that before 
he had read the usual three years — before he was quite 
twenty-one — Mr. Forward urged him to be examined. 
On motion of Charles Ogle, he was admitted to the 
Bar, December 2, 1830; and Forward, on leaving for 
the winter's session at Washington, advertised his busi- 
ness into Black's hands. 

From Mr. Forward he learned also other things 
than law: he became a Democrat, though his father 
was a staunch Whig. And in this matter the pupil 
eventually excelled his teacher. 

Against the second term of court the Governor of 
Pennsylvania appointed Mr. Black Deputy Attorney- 
General, the same as the present Prosecuting Attorney. 
This placed him on one side or the other of nearly all 
important cases. He worked hard, made many friends, 
was universally and implicitly trusted, and extended 
his reputation beyond the limits of Somerset county. 
Success was no light matter at such a Bar where there 
were some half a dozen lawyers of ability acknowl- 
edged throughout the State, such as Chauncey For- 
ward, Charles Ogle, Joseph Williams, Samuel G. Baily, 
Moses Hampton and Joshua F. Cox. 

"My anxiety and trouble under this load of re- 
sponsibility," says he, "were greater than I can ever 
express. I would have thrown it off and gone to any- 
thing else that promised half the pay. But I had no 
such chance and so kept on in the law for the mere 
lucre of it until I began to like it for its own sake." 

In three years he paid off the mortgage on his 
father's farm. 

His study of the law as a science became known to 
all and found its reward. Governor David R. Porter 



122 TALE OF A PIONEEH CHURCH. 

appointed him President Judge of the Sixteenth Judicial 
District in 1842, when he was but thirty-two years old. 
The Constitutional Amendment of 1850 made the 
Judiciary elective. Under this law the Democrats, in 
185 1, nominated Mr. Black for the Supreme Court of 
Pennsylvania, and he was elected with Gibson, Lewis, 
Lowrie, and Coulter. The latter was the only Whig. 
Having by lot drawn the short term of this new be- 
ginning, Judge Black became Chief Justice. A para- 
graph from one of his decisions will be given further 
on. In 1854 he was re-nominated, and even the then 
triumphant Know-Nothings cast their votes for him, 
the only Democrat that was that year elected. On 
March 7, 1857, President Buchanan gave him a seat in 
his Cabinet as Attorney-General, when Judge Black 
made A. T. Ankeny, afterwards a deacon in the Somer- 
set church and now a leading citizen of Minneapolis, 
his clerk. On the resignation of General Cass, Judge 
Black was made Secretary of State. This took place 
on December 17, i860, the very day on which the dis- 
union Convention of South Carolina assembled. On 
February 6, 1 861, Mr. Justice Daniel having died, 
President Buchanan nominated him to the Senate as 
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United 
States ; but owing to the disturbed condition of affairs 
his nomination was not confirmed. In December of 
the same year, 1861, he was appointed reporter for the 
Supreme Court and prepared two volumes, but owing 
to the press of enlarged private business had to resign. 
He became also a member of the convention of 1872 
to reform the constitution of Pennsylvania, and rendered 
valuable service, especially against monopolies. He 
resigned before the end of the convention because he 



A TRIO OF MALES. 1 23 

was from principle opposed to fix his own salary for 
public service, and took nothing for the eleven months 
of work done, though meanwhile he lost thousands of 
dollars from necessary neglect of private practice. The 
other members of the convention, having no such 
scruples, fixed and received their pay. 

This outline of dates having been given, occasion 
must be taken to say a few words that reveal the man 
more completely. Mr. Blaine, in his " Twenty Years 
in Congress," vol. I., p. 230, pays him this tribute: 

" He was a man of remarkable character. He was endowed by 
nature with a strong understanding and a strong will. In the profes- 
sion of the law he had attained great eminence. His learning had 
been illustrated by a prolonged service on the bench before the age at 
which men, even of exceptional success at the bar, usually attract pub- 
lic observation. He had added to his professional studies, which were 
laborious and conscientious, a wide acquaintance with our literature, 
and had found in its walks a delight which it yielded to few. In his- 
tory, biography, criticism, romance, he had absorbed everything in our 
language worthy of attention. Shakspeare, Milton, indeed all the Eng- 
lish poets, were his familiar companions. There was not a disputed 
passage or an obscure reading in any one of the great plays upon which 
he could not off-hand quote the best renderings, and throw original 
light from his own illuminated mind. Upon theology he had ap- 
parently bestowed years of investigation and reflection. A sincere 
Christian, he had been a devout and constant student of the Bible, and 
could quote its passages and apply its teachings with singular readiness 
and felicity. To this generous store of knowledge he added fluency of 
speech, both in public address and private conversation, and a style of 
writing which was at once unique, powerful, and attractive. He had 
attained unto every excellence of mental discipline described by Lord 
Bacon. Reading had made him a full man, talking a ready man, 
writing an exact man. The judicial literature of the English tongue 
may be sought in vain for finer models than are found in the opinions 
of Judge Black when he sat, and was worthy to sit, as the associate of 
John Bannister Gibson, on the Supreme Bench of Pennsylvania." 

In this Mr. Blaine speaks but the unvarnished truth, 



124 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

and that without emphasis. In his next paragraph, 
however, he does him such injustice on his attitude 
with respect to slavery that the Judge must be allowed 
to speak for himself, as reported for the Philadelphia 
Press of September 10, 1883, by Col. Frank A. Burr, 
a Republican : 

"I always abhorred slavery, but the law sanctioned it, and it was 
my duty to sustain the legal right. 

" ' I would not have a slave to till my ground ; 

To carry me, to fan me while asleep 

And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth 

That sinews bought and sold have ever earned. 

No, dear as freedom is, and in my heart's 

Just estimate prized above all price, 

I had much rather be myself the slave.' 

''These lines ever represented my feelings upon that institution. 
The Constitution recognized its legal right. ... I only tolerated 
the idea because the law recognized it. It should have been gotten rid 
of without violence and bloodshed, as was done in Pennsylvania and 
other Northern States. I always was in favor of its abolition, but 
could never bring myself to look upon the Abolitionists in any other 
light than the enemies of the government, because I knew and saw in 
their acts and utterances pending revolution. Time and the mad oc- 
currences of the past twenty years have confirmed my judgment." 

On December 21, 1883, the Bar of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, George F. Edmunds being 
chairman, spoke of Judge Black as — 

" A lawyer profoundly versed in the science of the law and worthy 
to be ranked with the greatest and ablest of our age and country ; a 
statesman illustrious for his public services ; a ready scholar ; a vigor- 
ous writer ; unexcelled as a logician, and in all the relations of life an 
eminent and worthy citizen." 

No one has ever known Judge Black with any de- 
gree of intimacy who has not been profoundly im- 
pressed with his conversational powers and table-talk. 



A TRIO OF MALES. 12 5 

It was there that his sentences had the same fine finish 
and bodied forth the same sparkling wit and solid wis- 
dom that are found in his set addresses and written es- 
says. It had the fascination of a novel and the genial- 
ity of the spring-time sun. 

In no act of his life has Gladstone's statesmanship 
stood forth with greater luster than in his recent Home- 
Rule policy. All the world does him homage for it. 
It was, however, long anticipated by Judge Black, and 
at length uttered to the world in his speech at the cele- 
bration of the centenary of Grattan's Declaration of 
Irish Independence, delivered in Baltimore, April 18, 
1882: 

"If the Irish people were in full possession of the right to admin- 
ister their own domestic affairs, they could perform their duties to the 
empire a thousand times better than now. They would be the pride 
and the strength of England ; not what they are— the weakness, the 
misfortune, and the shame. When we consider how easily, cheaply, 
and safely this unspeakable benefit might be bestowed, it is literally 
amazing to see it withheld. It is but erecting one or more political 
corporations, which you may call states, or territories, or provinces, to 
make, administer, and execute laws upon subjects which concern no- 
body but themselves, and with such limitations upon the power as may 
seem necessary to prevent its possible abuse. If this, coupled with a 
satisfactory adjustment of land tenures, would not start Ireland on a 
career of peace and prosperity, then all history is false, all experience 
delusive, and all philosophy a woven tissue of lies. . . . It is a 
mere truism to sny that the land belongs to the owners. . . . Every 
established State — every supreme government of whatever form — has 
the right of eminent domain — that is to say, the power to take private 
property for public use upon making just compensation. It is a dis- 
tinct and well-understood condition of all titles that they shall be sur- 
rendered upon those terms when the general good requires it. . . . 
The property of Irish landlords comes directly within the range of 
this power." — Essays and Speeches, pp. 169, 170. 

For many years Judge Black silently submitted to 



126 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

accusations of disloyalty while in Buchanan's Cabinet. 
Blaine, however, clears him of the charge from "the 
last of December, i860," to the end, but holds that 
this was a ''radical change " from his " opinion " of 
November 20, i860, upon which opinion Buchanan 
based his message of December 3d following ; and that 
this " change " came when he found that "he was 
playing with fire." Mr. Blaine further states that 
"some of the worst doctrines embodied in the Presi- 
dent's evil message came directly from an [this] opinion 
by Judge Black as Attorney-General, and made by 
Mr. Buchanan still more odious and more dangerous 
by the quotation of a part and not the whole " (p. 231). 
The opinion in question is given at length on pp. 3 19— 
324 in Vol. II. of Curtis' Life of Buchanan. It is a 
plain statement, in answer to questions propounded by 
Mr. Buchanan, as to what are the constitutional and 
legal duties and powers of the President in certain 
emergencies. And to this day no constitutional lawyer 
has ever presumed to call in question the soundness of 
that opinion. It is an interpretation of the law as it is, 
and then was, and not of the law as it might have been. 
Its salient points, explicit and implicit, are : That the 
Union of the States is necessarily perpetual, no State 
having a right to secede ; that the Federal Constitution 
is as much a part of the constitution of each State as 
if it had been textually inserted therein, but that the 
Federal Constitution acts, not upon the States as sack, 
but upon every citizen of the Union individually ; that 
where the law directs a certain thing to be done by 
specific agencies it is unlawful to do that thing by other 
agencies; that the Federal Constitution does not em- 
power the government to make aggressive war upon 



A TRIO OF MALES. I 27 

any State, confounding the innocent with the guilty, 
but that if any body of men attacks Federal property, 
or resists lawful Federal authority, defense becomes a 
duty. By this Mr. Black has always stood, and the 
now-acknowledged loyal course that followed is nothing 
more than the logical carrying out of this doctrine. An 
extract from Judge Black's first letter to Henry Wilson, 
many years after, will show how this matter stands : 

" Of course, you are not so ignorant of the fundamental law as not 
to know that our exposition of it was perfectly sound and correct. 
You never pretended — no man with sense enough to know his right hand 
from his left ever will pretend — that the President had constitutional or 
legal authority to make an aggressive war against the States by his own 
act, nor had Congress any such power. But you think I ought not to 
have answered the President's questions truly, and that he ought not to 
have been influenced by constitutional scruples. That is the rub. 
There is no dispute — never was, and never can be — about the law. 

Mr. Lincoln adopted precisely the same legal principles with re- 
gard to the coercion of the States that Mr. Buchanan had acted upon, 
and carried the policy of reconciliation infinitely beyond him." — Essays 
and Speeches, pp. 247 and 249. 

Mr. Black's memorable Cabinet reply to Floyd's 
proposition to give up the Southern forts was also made 
before this alleged "radical change," namely: 

"There never was a period in the history of the English nation 
when any minister could propose to give up to an enemy of h s govern- 
ment a military post which was capable of being defended, without 
being brought to the block." 

It was also by Mr. Black's express previous order 
that Major Anderson, when in his judgment the time 
for carrying it out had arrived, changed from Moultrie 
to the more defensible Fort Sumpter. 

The truth of history as well as the honor of the 
Somerset church demand that these facts should be 



128 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

known. Accordingly this fitting opportunity is im- 
proved. 

Upon the expiration of Buchanan's Presidency, 
Judge Black returned to Somerset a poor man. There 
being then no railroad nearer than Johnstown, a dist- 
ance of twenty-eight miles, and his reportership and 
other business demanding frequent and distant travels, 
he moved to York, Pennsylvania, the previous home 
of some of his ancestors. 

While Attorney- General, unlike the usual custom, 
he argued himself the cases pertaining to his office. 
He even learned Spanish, that he might personally ex- 
amine and conscientiously attend to the many land- 
claims arising out of the then recent cession of Cali- 
fornia, where "dire confusion reigned." By this faith- 
fulness he saved millions upon millions of dollars in 
cases gained for the government. This success gave 
him such a reputation that afterwards he had the offer 
of more cases — large paying ones, too — than he cared 
to attend to. From the New Almaden cinnabar mines 
he received the largest fee ever paid to a lawyer in the 
United States, namely, $163,000. Had he sought 
only for large fees rather than being anxious to aid the 
oppressed without regard to compensation, or had he 
even always collected fees actually earned, he might 
have died immensely rich. Of his public life, the fol- 
lowing lines are true : 

"Great without pomp, without ambition brave, 
Proud not to conquer fellow-men, but save ; 
Friend to the weak, a foe to none but those 
Who plan their greatness on their brethren's woes; 
Awed by no titles^ — undefiled by lust — 
Free without faction, obstinately just ; 
Too wise to learn from Machiavel's school, 



A TRIO OF MALES. 129 

That truth and perfidy by turns should rule ; 
Warmed by religion's sacred, genuine ray, 
That points to future bliss away ; 
Yet ne'er controlled by superstition's laws, 
That worst of tyrants in the noblest cause." 

This brings us to the strictly religious phase of his 
life. It is well worth considering how such an intel- 
lect would deal with the Bible and biblical questions. 
Not that the Judge was all intellect at the expense of 
heart, as so many abnormalities are, but that the intel- 
lectual predominated. And it is just here where his 
severest personal struggles came. His early education 
was Calvinistic, but his wife, Mary Forward, the oldest 
daughter of his legal preceptor, whom he married on 
March 23, 1836, was a Disciple. The Judge had passed 
that period in life when men can with blind trust ac- 
cept the creed of others. Everything had to be weighed 
with judicial care by one who knew what evidence is. 
As early as 1833 he secured and studied a book by a 
Presbyterian minister, Obadiah Jennings of Tennessee, 
then just published in Pittsburg, and styled, "Debate 
on Campbellism." In this and various other directions 
the investigation went continuously on till in the sum- 
mer of 1843, when he took his wife and Mrs. Emily 
Ogle into his carriage and drove to Bethany to give the 
final canvass to the matter with Alexander Campbell 
himself. The result was that he then and there ' * put on 
Christ." How thorough a Disciple he became all his 
after life attests, especially his famous "Answer to 
Ingersoll." He was but modestly stating his own ex- 
perience when he wrote : 

"Gibson, the great Chief-Justice of Pennsylvania, once said to a 
certain skeptical friend of his : ' Give Christianity a common-law trial ; 



130 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

submit the evidence pro and con to an impartial jury under the direc- 
tion of a competent court, and the verdict will assuredly be in its 
favor.' This deliverance, coming from the most illustrious Judge of 
his time, not at all given to expressions of sentimental piety, and quite 
incapable of speaking on any subject for mere effect, staggered the un- 
belief of those who heard it." 

How admirably he further puts the matter : 

" The acceptance of Christianity by a large portion of the genera- 
tion contemporary with its Founder and his apostles was, under the 
circumstances, an adjudication as solemn and authoritative as mortal 
intelligence could pronounce. The record of that judgment has come 
down to us, accompanied by the depositions of the principal witnesses. 
In the course of eighteen centuries many efforts have been made to 
open the judgment or set it aside on the ground that the evidence was 
insufficient to support it. But on every rehearing the wisdom and vir- 
tue of mankind have reaffirmed it." 

Then in eight several counts he proceeds to validate 
this judgment as against Ingersoll's reopening of the 
case, and with majestic sweep, brushes aside his flimsy 
sophistry and excoriates his leprosy, closing like a true 
Roman that he was, 

Adsum qui feci, in me convertite ferrum — 

I who did this deed am here, turn on me thy steel. 

But Ingersoll had enough, and with a little disgraceful 
bushwhacking, to which the Judge could not conde- 
scend, he sneaked from the field. 

From the Judge's " Address on Religious Liberty " 
it may be profitable to quote a few sentences : 

"We habitually use certain words and phrases, imported from the 
other side of the water, which are calculated to mislead us. One of 
these is the word toleration, as applied to matters of faith. It implies 
that we derive whatever religious freedom we have from the conces- 
sions of the government ; that the king in a monarchy, and the major- 
ity of the people in a republic, permit those who differ from them to 
live unmolested. This motion is wholly untrue. It is not a political 



A TRIO OF MALES. 1 3] 

privilege, but a natural, absolute, and indefeasible right, which 
human government may protect but can not either give or withhold. 
If we are permitted to enjoy it, our thanks are due, not to any popular 
majority, but to Him who gave us being." 

" Again, we hear it continually said, by the wisest men among us, 
that Christianity is a part of our common law. No one has ever at- 
tempted to explain how this is understood. . . . We have merely 
quoted this maxim from the English Judges, and gone on repeating it 
ever since, without inquiring whether it was true or false. It never 
was true, even in England, in any just sense of the word; but it was 
not there, as here, a dead letter; for in the evil days of that nation it 
had a bloody and terrible meaning. What the king and Parliament, 
and a favored portion of the priesthood, chose to call Christianity was 

a part of their law enforced with the utmost severity The 

manifest object of the men who framed the institutions of this country, 
was to have a State without religion, and a Chureh without politics — that is 
to say, they never meant that one should be used as an engine for any 
purpose of the other, and that no man's right in one should be tested 
by his opinions about the other. As the Church takes no note of men's 
political differences, so the State looks with equal eye on all modes of 
religious faith. The Church may give her preference to a Tory, and 
the State may be served by a heretic." 

How the Judge carried these principles into practi- 
cal life, we are not left to doubt. In the Supreme 
Court of Pennsylvania, in the case of ' ' the Common- 
wealth vs. Johnson," there is in the American Law 
Register for March, 1854, Nol. II., No. 5, a very im- 
portant decision pronounced by him, on the driving of 
an omnibus through the streets of the city of Pittsburg 
on Sunday, as interfering with the proper sanctification 
of the Lordsday. The following points were clearly 
and irrefragably argued : 

"I. Driving an omnibus as a public conveyance daily, and every 
day, is worldly employment, and not a work of charity or necessity, 
within the meaning of the act of '94, and, therefore, not lawful on 
Sunday. 

f l IL A contract of hiring by the month, does not, in general. 



132 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

bind the hiring to work on Sundays ; and if this work be such as the 
statute forbids, an express agreement to perform it on Sunday will not 
protect him, for such a contract is void. 

" III. Though traveling does not, in a legal sense, fall within the 
description of worldly employment intended to be prohibited, yet the 
running of public conveyances on Sunday, is forbidden by the statute." 

The last paragraph of Judge Black's decision is as 
follows : 

"Our fathers, who planted in our fundamental law the assertion 
of those immortal truths, that all men have a natural and indefeasible 
right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own 
consciences ; that no man can be compelled to attend, erect, or sup- 
port any place of public worship ; and that no human authority can, 
in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience ; 
enacted, also, the statutes of 1705, 1786, and 1794, lor the suppression 
of worldly employments on Sunday. So far from conflicting with those 
invaluable rights of conscience, they regarded such statutes as indis- 
pensable to secure them. It would be a small boon to the people of 
Pennsylvania to declare their indefeasible right to worship God accord- 
ing to the dictates of their consciences, amid the din and confusion of 
secular employments, and with desecrations on every hand of what 
they conscientiously believe to be hallowed time. These statutes were 
not designed to compel men to go to church, or to worship God in any 
manner inconsistent with personal preferences ; but to compel a cessa- 
tion of those employments which are calculated to interfere with the 
rights of those who choose to assemble for public worship. The day 
was set apart for a purpose, and the present enactments guard it, but 
they leave every one free to use it for that purpose or not. If he wish 
to use it for the purpose designed, the law protects him from the an- 
noyance of others — if he do not, it restrains him from annoying those 
who do so use it. Thus the law, without oppressing anybody, becomes 
auxiliary to the rights of conscience. And there are other rights, inti- 
mately associated with the rights of conscience, which are worth pre- 
serving. The right to rear a family without compelling them to witness 
hourly infractions of one of its fundamental laws — the right to enjoy 
the peace and good order of society, and the increased securities of life 
and property which result from a decent observance of Sunday — the 
right of the poor to rest from labor, without diminution of wages or 
loss of employment — the right of beasts of burden to repose one- 



A TRIO OF MALES. 1 33 

seventh of their time from their unrequited toil — these are real and 
substantial interests which the legislature sought to secure by this en- 
actment ; and when has religion aimed at higher obiects ? If we 
doubted the policy of the statute, it would nevertheless be our sworn 
duty to administer it faithfully; but with a profound conviction of its 
wisdom and value, we are resolutely opposed to a course of judicial 
construction that would cheapen its demands and impair its power for 
good." . 

An incident occurred at Somerset a little while be- 
fore he entered the Cabinet, which shows his reverence 
for the word of God. A brother in the Church failed 
to do his duty in a business transaction with him. The 
Judge resolved to settle the matter in the Civil Court. 
He insisted that Caesar's appliances to probe such mat- 
ters to the bottom are more perfect than loose Church 
arbitration. Wherenpon one of the Elders quoted 
Paul: 

" Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law be- 
fore the unjust, and not before saints? Do you not know that the 
saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, 
are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that ye 
shall judge angels? how much more things pertaining to this life?" — 
I. Cor. vi., 1-3. 

Thereupon the Judge turned and stood for awhile, 
thoughtfully looking out of a window. Presently he 
said: ' 'Pretty high authority, pretty high authority," 
and gracefully yielded the point. 

Out of reverence for the name of God, he would not 
even take a judicial oath, but always affirmed. 

Sometimes in the church assemblies at Somerset he 
would deliver an off-hand lecture on doctrinal matters, 
or an exhortation on moral and spiritual duties. 
Though this was not often done, it was always well 
done. 



134 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

During one of the visits of Eld. N. J. Mitchell an 
incident occurred that shows the Judge's estimate of 
the Disciples' doctrinal position. Elder Mitchell is of 
small stature, and was a total stranger to the Judge. 
As he began his sermon on "The Plea of the Disciples 
of Christ," measuring his man, the Judge said to a 
neighbor in church, "Brother Snyder, we are sold;" 
but as the preacher began to develop with his theme, 
he said, "No, Brother Snyder, we are not sold;" and 
when the argument was ended, he added, with empha- 
sis, "Well, Brother Snyder, if we haven't the truth, 
there is no truth in the universe." 

Being a Disciple from profound conviction and upon 
thorough investigation, he stood by the struggling 
Washington Church as much as his arduous engage- 
ments would permit. When at York, Pennsylvania, 
where there is no Disciple church, he was still true to 
his faith. During the war he secured the services of 
Professor C. L. Loos to inaugurate the work there, but 
before it could be begun, Gen. Early, with his South- 
ern troops, marched into York and the attempt was in- 
definitely postponed. All of Judge Black's children 
and grandchildren have been immersed, including, of 
course, his son Chauncey, the present Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor, and recent Democratic nominee for Governor of 
Pennsylvania, who holds membership in the Washing- 
ton, D. C, Disciple church, and leads a consistent 
Christian life. When Judge Black's granddaughter, 
Mary Forward Clayton, was ready for baptism, in 1882, 
he wished it done in Codorus creek, at York, that all 
might see his faith publicly exemplified, but deferred to 
the wishes of his family, who preferred to have it take 
place where there was a regular church. 



A TRIO OF MALES. I$§ 

He also took a lively interest in his wife's Sunday- 
school enterprises,* giving his ample grounds for pic- 
nic occasions, and excluding reporters, that the good 
work be not ostentatiously bruited abroad. 

An editor of a New York Pedobaptist paper, speaks 
of Judge Black as follows : 

" But, above all, he was a man of deep religious convictions. He 
was an ardent admirer of the late Alexander Campbell, and was iden- 
tified with the ' Disciples of Christ.' Uncompromising and dogmatic 
in the statement of his doctrinal views, he was, at the same time, 
courteous and gentle in his intercourse with all Christian men, always 
insisting, however, that loyalty to Christ demands implicit obedience 

* Judge David Fahs, a Moravian layman, of York, Pennsylvania, seeing that 
notwithstanding the forty odd churches in that place there were hundreds of neg- 
lected boys and girls among the poor of that extensive manufacturing city of 
twenty thousand people, started an independent Sunday-school in 1876, gathering 
up three boys the first day, but now having an enrollment of two hundred pupils, 
many of them being men and women advanced in years. About three months 
later Mrs. Elizabeth Sprigg, a Baptist, and Mrs. Barnes, an Episcopalian, together 
with others, came to their assistance. A year after beginning the work Mrs. Black 
took a class of women, which now numbers forty members. A chapel, some 
75 by 48 feet, divided into numerous rooms which can all be thrown into one, was 
built about eight years ago at a cost of about four thousand dollars. 

Having entered upon this work, Mrs Black, in the spring of 1879, started an 
additional mission school in East York, where a chapel named Bethany by her and 
costing twelve hundred dollars, was built a year later, to which two wings have at 
different times since been added. When this work was begun it was unsafe for 
even a man to walk the streets of that quarter at night, but now a woman would 
not be molested ; for the influence of the school extends far beyond the immediate 
attendants, so that men once drunkards, gamblers, and even worse characters, are 
now owners of respectable homes. Judge Fahs superintends the school also, 
which numbers about one hundred and forty pupils. Mrs. Black's class of women 
in this school numbers thirty, with an average attendance of fifteen. Her carriage 
regularly carries the workers to their posts even at such seasons as she is absent 
from home. 

Many of the attendants of these schools have to be shod and clothed. Mrs. 
Black alone bought in one winter sixty pair of arctic shoes and over a hundred 
warm petticoats. In her modesty she begged that these things be not here told. 
But as the writers purpose is to stimulate other Marys to like works of love, he 
must beg Sister Mary F. Black's pardon and — disobey. 

The work of these schools is of necessity an undenominational one, and yet, 
as Mrs. Black has hitherto got pupils ready for baptism, she has sent either for a 
Disciple minister to administer the ordinance or has directed them to apply to the 
Baptist church of that place for it, according as the prudence of circumstances 
seemed to indicate. 



6 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



to his commands ; and, applying this test to baptism, he sometimes 
found his charity and patience in the case of his Pedo-Baptist brethren 
severely taxed. On one of his late visits to New York we had the 
pleasure of a short interview with Judge Black, when he insisted on 
the inseparable relation of belief and baptism in the plan of salvation > 
and upon our rema king that his view of our Lord's words in the great 
commission rested upon his own interpretation, he replied, with 
earnestness, ' No, sir, it is not a question of interpretation ; it is an ab- 
solute law and I hold it presumptuous to pervert it.' " 

Not long before his death, Judge Black said to a 
friend : 

" When I am gone I want you to be able to say of me as was 
said of Samuel when he left the judgeship of Israel : < Whose ox have 
I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? 
Whom have I oppressed ? or of whose hand have I received any bribe 
to blind mine eyes therewith ? and I will restore it you. And they 
said, Thou hast not defrauded us, neither hast thou taken aught of any 
man's hand '" (I. Sam. xii, 3, 4). 

Visitors to "Brockie," Judge Black's beautiful 
home near York, Pennsylvania, have told the writer 
that long after the rest of the household had retired for 
the night and were supposed to be wrapped in sleep, 
he could be heard going about in his study or ascending 
the stairs for bed, familiarly and reverently talking with 
his Heavenly Father. 

On receiving the second valume of "Curtis' Life of 
Buchanan," as if aware that death was at his own door, 
he immediately turned to and read the account of Mr. 
Buchanan's death, hastily tearing the uncut leaves 
apart. It was the last reading he did. Then ' ' he 
walked out upon the broad veranda of Brockie, gazed 
thoughtfully at the shadows of the clouds chasing each 
other across the moonlit hills — the last look he ever 
cast upon the world — and retired to the bed from 
which he never rose." 



A TRIO OF MALES. I 37 

The immediate cause of his death was something 
akin to gravel, for which an operation was performed 
too late, and blood-poisoning ensued. While expect- 
ing his end, he said to one of his family: "I would 
not have you think for a moment that I am afraid to 
die." And to another: "My business on the other 
side is well settled — on this, it is still somewhat at loose 
ends." As his beloved wife knelt beside his bed to 
comfort him with her sympathy, he murmured the fol- 
lowing prayer, which a friend noted down : 

" O Thou belo.ved and most merciful Father, from whom I had 
my being and in whom I ever trusted, grant, if it be Thy will, that I 
no longer suffer this agony, and that I be speedily called home to Thee. 
And, O God, bless and comfort this my Mary." 

His death took place on our Lord's resurrection 
day, Sunday, August 19, 1883, and his burial a few 
days later at set of sun, Eld. F. D. Power, of Wash- 
ington, and others officiating. Surely, for him there 
is a morning of glorious resurrection ! 

One of the physicians present at his death-bed de- 
clared that a finer refutation of Ingersoll's doctrines 
could not be imagined than such a scene. 

"His fame was brightened by his glorious end; 
By pain unmoved, magnanimous in death, 
He proved the hero with his latest breath, 
And shot eternal splendors through the gloom 
That sh ouds in night the confines of the tomb." 

The Somerset church sent the following letter to 
his beloved wife : 

"Somerset, Pa., August 24, 1881 
"Mrs. Mary F. Black: 

"Dear Sister in Christ— The shadow that has fallen across your 

threshold has also darkened our hearts. They bleed by reason of the 

sorrow that has pierced your own. We come to beg the privilege 

of mingling our tears with yours, our sister, and of joining in the 



T38 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

bitter wail. Ycur loss is ours. It was here that your dear husband 
found his earliest friends and knew his truest hearts. He was ours in 
the cradle, at the plow, before the bar, and on the bench. We only 
gave him up at length that he might be ours the more in the National 
Cabinet. We felt a neighbors pride and a brother's joy in all his 
splendid triumphs. And now that death has come, we feel the icy 
hand as laid "on us, and pour our grief. 

" The name of Jeremiah S. Black, along-side of yours, still stands 
on the records of the Somerset Disciple church, where it was placed 
some forty years ago. We are sure that it also stands in the Lamb's 
Book of Life. 

"Though by reason of distant residence he has not been able to 
meet with us regularly for a number of years, and so has worshipped 
elsewhere, we have never ceased to regard him as still a member here, 
and often had his name upon our lips as well as constantly in our hearts. 

" At our last evening's prayer-meeting we recounted his deeds and 
gave vent to our sorrow. We spoke of his saying, ' No man can be- 
come truly great who is not thoroughly honest.' We sung the hymn 
that was sung at his baptism, beginning : 

" ' Not all the nobles of the earth, 

Who boast the honors of their birth, 

So high a dignity can claim 

As those who bear the Christian name.' 

"We recalled many of the excellent lessons he imparted as one of 
the early lay-teachers of this church. We are proud of the noble de- 
fense he made, in the North American Review, of the faith in Christ. 
And we rejoice in the calm confidence with which he faced the foe of 
life. 

"These are the lights that relieve our gloom, and the oil of joy 
that soothes our hurt. We ' sorrow not as others who have no hope,' 
and are sure that you share our joy as we join in your sorrow. 

" ' Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.' 

" Dear sister, the depth of pain you feel, in this sad hour, marks 
the strength of the grasp with which the hand of Providence has laid 
hold of you to guide your life. Wrest not yourself from the Divine 
leadings, but allow the dear Father to lift His child into closer fellow- 
ship with Himself. 

'"We know that all things work together for good to them that 
love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose.' 
" Yours in the hope of eternal life, 

" In behalf of the church. " Peter Vogel, Pastor." 



CHAPTER XIV. 



EVANGELISTS. 



One of the finest words of the English tongue is 
evangel — sweet message. It comes from the Greek 
word denoting gospel, namely, evangelion ; and evan- 
gelist stands related to evangel as gospeler does to gos- 
pel, the two being synonyms. Evangelists are minis- 
ters of the gospel whose first business it is to carry the 
word " of this salvation " to those who are without the 
pale of the church, to build them into a "temple for 
the habitation of God through the Spirit," and then to 
see that they and their officers walk orderly. In all the 
New Testament there is not a single Epistle addressed 
to either church or bishop telling them to select or 
how to ordain elders. But Timothy and Titus, two 
evangelists, are duly instructed how to proceed in this 
matter, and how to hear cause of complaint against 
such local officers. 

That such was also the teaching of the fathers of 
this movement, it is perhaps well to show by a few ex- 
tracts, before proceeding with the more local history of 
these and other evangelists that visited Somerset. 

In the Millennial Harbinger Tor July, 1855, Alexan- 

139 



140 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

der Campbell takes an article from Dr. S. E. Shep- 
herd's Reviser on "Organization," wherein the Doctor 
says of the evangelist : 

"For continuance of this office the following order was given: 
* The things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the 
same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.' 
Thus evangelists were to be perpetuated. No such charge was given 
relative to prophets and apostles." 

"4. He [Timothy, an evangelist] was instructed to appoint as 
superintendents [episkopoi] or overseers, and {diakonoi) ministers." 

"5. It was his business to reprove, under proper circumstances, 
although but a youth. It was not the privilege of his age, but a duty 
of his office." 

" 7. He was to hear accusations against elders, under proper cir- 
cumstances, and rebuke publicly when they sinned, that ' others might 
fear.' " 

"II. He was to make other evangelists." 

"A supply of New Testament evangelists would be more for the 
conversion of the world and the improvement of congregations, than 
any man can calculate. There is no such order of men, fully invested, 
now in existence. All churches are now too aristocratic, or too demo- 
cratic." 

On this, Alexander Campbell comments thus : 

" Either there is, or there is not, a Christian system of church or- 
ganization. If there be no divinely instituted system of church organ- 
ization, there must be a human system, or there is no system at all! 
Has the King of the kingdom of heaven himself laid down no system 
of organization ? Then he has no.kingdom of heaven — no church on 
earth ! He may have a people, but, without organization, he can have 
neither church nor kingdom, for those terms indicate organized 
bodies." 

"The Church of Christ has a living ministry, as well as a dead 
ministry, embalmed in the Living Oracles. Of these, evangelists are 
first, bishops are second, and deacons are third. 

" I here use the words, the Church of Christ, in its specific sense. It 
is not a particular church, or a single community. When 'Christ gave 
himself for the church,'' as apostles affirm, it was not for the church in 
Corinth, Ephesus, or Philippi, but for the church, the whole church, 
composed of all the individual communities on earth, tantamount to 



EVANGELISTS. I4I 

the kingdom of Christ. Evangelists preach the gospel, baptize the 
converts, constitute churches, set things in order and keep them in order. 
They are not bishops or overseers of churches, nor deacons, but mis- 
sionaries, or public heralds of the kingdom of Christ. 

"But here a critical and most important question arises: How 
are evangelists to keep the church, or the churches of Christ, in order?' 1 '' 

"Next to apostles and prophets are 'evangelists, pastors and 
teachers.' These belong to the regular, or ordinary Christian ministry. 
'The pastors and teachers ' belong to the regular eldership of every 
Christian church. But as the evangelists rank before these, there is, 
in many minds, some ambiguity. We shall, therefore, examine with 
some care this office, as developed in the Christian ministry. Of this 
class we have Timothy and Titus, to whom Paul delivered three epis- 
tles. Let us, therefore, apply to them, and to the instructions Paul 
gave to them respecting their official duties. We only assume that 
their work is faithfully defined in the instructions given to them by 
Paul himself. 

" In the first letter to Timothy, he states that he besought him to 
continue at Ephesus, that he should superintend the teachers, and 
charge them to teach no strange doctrine, and instructs him touching 
the character of the elders or bishops and deacons, the regular minis- 
try of the church, what they should, and what they should not, do 
and teach, and that he should give attendance to reading, exhortation, 
and teaching, and that he should not neglect his gift, or office, given 
to him by the imposition of hands of the eldership, that ordained him 
to discharge the duties ; and also, that he should see that they were 
well supported by the church, while they were laboring in preaching 
and teaching (I. Tim. v. 17). He also instructs him how to proceed 
in the discipline of the elders, and the ordination of proper characters, 
without partiality in judging and in rebuking them, when charged 
with neglect of duty ; and also, cautions him in making or appointing 
persons to office in such a way as not to be partaker of their sins or 
errors. He also charges him ' to keep the commandment given to him,' 
as he must account for it 'at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.' 
Besides preaching and teaching, he enjoins upon him the duty of re- 
proving, rebuking, and exhorting. See his several epistles." 

"We have always had, and now have, evangelists in our com- 
munity ; but too many of them are as inefficient as the elders or bishops of 
our churches. They preach, and baptize, and constitute churches, but, 
in many instances, take no further supervision of either them or their elder- 
ship. They neglect the duties of their office ; often leaving these newly 



f42 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

constituted churches and their new elders to move along in a monot- 
onous uniformity, without either zeal or diligence. But experience, 
that most effectual teacher, is now reproving either their incompetance 
or neglect of duty." 

Such were the views of one of the men who visited 
Somerset. In the December number of the same mag- 
azine, namely, the Harbinger, of 1855, another of the 
visitors to Somerset, Pres. R. Milligan, writes thus on 
" The Christian Ministry." 

"The church is not composed of an indefinite number of separate 
and independent organizations. It is a unit : a unit, indeed, composed 
of parts, and each part has its own proper organization ; but neverthe- 
less, a unit. . . . For ' there is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye 
are called in one hope of your calling ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 
one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you 
all' (Eph. iv. 4-6). There must, therefore, be some strong and sym- 
pathetic bond of union between all congregations of the saints. There 
must be some organization, that, without interfering with the delegated 
rights of each congregation, will bind together all in one harmonious 
whole ; through which the church may exert her power over the 
nations ; through which she may convert the world, organize new con- 
gregations, correct disorders in those already established, and give 
efficiency and energy to her works of faith and labor of love." 

" When Christ ascended up on high, he not only gave apostles and 
prophets, but also evangelists, pastors and teachers to the church. This 
is, therefore, the proper official appellative of Barnabas, Mark, Luke, 
Silas, Apollos, Titus, Timothy, and all others who preach Christ and 
him crucified. This is the proper work of an evangelist. But he may 
have many subordinate duties. Some of them must have. Timothy, 
when left at Ephesus, was commanded not only to preach the word, but 
also to see that others taught nothing inconsistent with the apostolic 
doctrine, . . . that well qualified elders and deacons were chosen 
and set apart to their proper spheres of labor, . . . that an accu. 
sation against an elder should not be received, unless sustained by the 
testimony of two or three witnesses ; ... that as the presiding 
evangelist, Timothy should so administer the business of the congrega- 
tion as to keep himself pure from the sins, faults, and foibles of others." 

" It is further evident, that some kind of organization is indispens- 
ably necessary to the accomplishment of the evangelical work. When 



EVANGELISTS. 1 43 

Paul ordained Timothy, he did not dismiss him, after the example of 
some modern evangelists, to go when and where he pleased ; to buy a 
farm on Monday, cultivate it on Tuesday, trade in stock on Wednesday, 
engage in commerce on Thursday, become a broker on Friday, discuss 
politics on Saturday, and on Lord's day preach when, where, and as his 
own immature judgment might dictate. Such was not Paul's sense of 
propriety. For a time, he kept Timothy under his own immediate 
care, tuition, and direction. It was not till they had travelled together 
through Phrygia, Galatia, and Mysia, and had visited Philippi and 
Thessalonica, that Paul left him, when he sailed for Athens, to assist 
Silas in setting in order the things that were wanting among the Berean 
Christians. After this, various important trusts were committed to 
Timothy; but not without the solemn charge to give himself wholly to 
the work, and to perpetuate the evangelical office by committing to 
other faithful and competent men all that he had heard from the apostle 
respecting the qualifications, duties, labors, and responsibilities of 
evangelists, as well as concerning the facts, precepts, promises, and 
threatenings of the gospel. 

"The case of Timothy is not an exception to the apostolic rule. 
Paul treated other evangelists in the same way. Silas, Luke, Demas, 
Crescens, Mark, Titus, and many others, were his helpers, and, in some 
degree, object to his authority. Moreover, the same spirit that in- 
spired Paul, also directed Peter and other apostles. Each one, accord- 
ing to the necessities and opportunities of the case, called to his aid 
faithful men, who were able to teach others also, and directed them in 
their works of faith and labors of love." 

"The details of this organization have been wisely left to the 
wisdom and prudence of the order. What will suit one age or district, 
may not, in every particular, be best adapted to the peculiarities of 
another. That every association of evangelists should elect its own 
rulers, appoint its own agents, and determine, by popular vote, many 
other questions of general expediency, is in harmony with both reason 
and revelation. But what extent of country every association should 
embrace; what financial, prudential, and executive arrangements it 
should adopt, must be left to its own wisdom and discretion, guided by 
the spirit and generic principles of the gospel. 

"In some places, evangelical associations have been partially 
formed in judicial and congressional districts. And an attempt has 
been made to unite them in state associations. If this plan were per- 
fected, and these again united in a national association, not to interfere, 
in the remotest degree, with anything that the apostles have done, but 



144 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

merely to execute their plans and purposes ; to compile or to adopt, for 
example, a common hymn-book for the whole church, and to settle all 
other questions of general expediency, it would certainly do much to 
correct present disorder, and to impart a spirit of unity, energy, and 
efficiency to all our ecclesiastical operations. To this subject the atten- 
tion of the whole brotherhood is, therefore, most earnestly invited. 

" From this discussion, it is evident that none should assume the 
position of a public teacher or proclaimer of the gospel, but those who 
have been proved, recommended, and regularly set apart to the work 
of the ministry. This is clearly and fully implied in the fact, 
that an order of men, possessing certain required qualifications, have, 
by divine authority, been appointed to the field of evangelical labor. 
If one man has a right to judge oi his own fitness for the work, every 
other man has the same right ; and thus all sorts of doctrine would 
soon be preached by all sorts of men ! 

" ' From such apostles, O ye chosen guards, 
Preserve the church ; and lay no careless hands 
On skulls that can not teach, and will not learn.' " 

It must not, however, be supposed that all the so- 
called evangelists to be mentioned below as visitors to 
Somerset and the surrounding regions were as fit, as 
duly " called," as properly ordained, or as given to the 
adjustment of the work, as the foregoing extracts 
teach. Indeed the "call" of an occasional one at 
least resembled his own shouting against a barn and 
taking the echo for an answer. Nor must the reader 
assume that the fact of their mention is a guarantee of 
that moral purity implied in Isaiah's injunction : 
"Be ye clean, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord," 
for in several instances Isaiah's other description is 
true: "Yea, the dogs are greedy, they can never have 
enough ; and these are shepherds that can not under- 
stand : they have all turned to their own way, each one 
to his gain, from every quarter." Faithful history can 
not omit their mention, chiefly for the reason that in 
spite of their moral turpitude the gospel they were so 



EVANGELISTS. 145 

unworthy to preach nevertheless fell often into good 
soil, whose harvest needs honorable mention. There 
were such men in Paul's day, for he writes to the 
Philippians : "Some, indeed, preach Christ even of 
envy and strife ; and some also of good will : the one 
do it of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of 
the gospel : but the other proclaim Christ of faction, 
not sincerely, thinking to raise up affliction for me in 
in my bonds. " And again: "Many walk, of whom 
I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, 
that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ : 
whose end is perdition, whose god is the belly, and 
whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly 
things." While the fact that there are such preachers 
is to be deeply lamented, there can yet be rejoicing in 
the good that may result. Hence Paul continues the first 
quotation : ' ' What then ? only that in every way, whether 
in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed ; and therein 
I rejoice and will rejoice." And this he did notwith- 
standing the fact that they slandered him in every way 
and he was compelled to oppose and expose them. 

The prevalence of such men, never wholly possible 
to avoid, is helped by what Campbell in the Harbinger 
for 1843, p. 429, calls " the absence of an efficient sys- 
tem of cooperation, or rather the lack of a complete 
organization," so that "there is no way of preventing 
public imposition." Such men always oppose 
"cooperation" and "complete organization" with 
the false cry of "Popery! Popery!" for they well 
know that it would mean detection and exposure. Yet 
it was on this very question of organization that Camp- 
bell thought and wrote much, because he saw it was 
go necessary to the real prosperity of the Master's 



I46 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

cause. Another brief extract, from the Harbinger of 
1850, p, 284, ff. , must be given: 

"A church of Christ at Connellsville, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, or 
New York, is not the church of Christ. The church of Christ is a very 
large and widely extended community, and possesses a large field, even 
the habitable earth. . . . The independence of any community in 
Christ's kingdom is not an independence of every community in 
that kingdom, in whatever concerns the interests of that kingdom. 
This would, indeed, be a fatal error to the progress and prosperity of 
that kingdom. In whatever concerns every private community, it is, 
indeed, independent of, and irresponsible to, any other ; but it is 
both dependent upon, and responsible to, every other commuity, in all 
that pertains to the interests, honor, and prosperity of ail. . . . Not 
one church can be absolutely independent of every other church be- 
longing to the community or church of Christ. Our United States 
happens to be, of all national institutions on the earth, the most ana- 
logous to the Christian church in that particular point which we are 
now contemplating. There are thirty sovereign and independent 
States in this American Nation, each one independent of every other, 
yet all dependent upon every one for all that is due from her for the 
safety prosperity, and happiness of the Nation. The Nation could not 
exist without the States, nor the States prosper or enjoy themselves, 
and discharge their duties, without the Nation." 

" Did you have any preachers of bad morals among 
you in those early days?" asked the writer once of 
Aunt Charlotte. "Yes," was the answer, "but we 
gave them considerable honor, for they really brought 
more people into the church than did the pure and 
learned men, not excepting Alexander Campbell. Of 
course, we often did not know their real character till 
they had gone away, or at the earliest found them out 
only after their protracted meetings were well under 
way." In early days, when churches were few and 
scattered, and when news travelled slowly, these men 
found better opportunities. Even now they move in 
regions akin to the olden times by the absence of inter- 



EVANGELISTS. 1 47 

church organization. They are usually noted by the 
abundance of testimonials which they carry. Nor are 
they slow to claim God's direct approval of their work 
as witnessed by their abundant success here and there. 
They do not settle down and stay for years with one 
congregation unless, perchance, they find one whose 
officers and leading members are themselves of dam- 
aged characters, and need that kind of an evangelist as 
that kind of an evangelist needs them. On occasion 
they can manufacture tears and penitence to order, and 
ask whether you think it Christian procedure to with- 
hold forgiveness from such contrition and asseveration 
of pious intention. Being guilty of so much, they are 
often charged with kindred sins which they did not 
commit, and they know how to use such instances so 
as to throw discredit on real offenses. Should an ever 
so godly man expose them and oppose them for Christ's 
sake and the good of his cause, they would cry " per- 
secution," ''jealousy," or " kicking a man after he is 
down," etc., etc. Conscience does not stand in their 
way to make any assertion they can invent to serve a 
purpose; and so that inexperienced goodness of heart, 
which is not uncommon among the masses, falls a ready 
prey to their artful maneuvers and abundance of pro- 
testation. And as to success, the stream which has no 
breadth can readily appear deep with but little water. 
As no energy is expended in hard study and broad 
efforts, it can all be put forth with telling effect in its 
narrow channel. It requires but little knowledge to 
know only first principles and handle them with con- 
siderable display, especially when they are held in a 
cheap legal way and preached with an air of superior 
soundness in the faith. Twenty or thirty sermons are 



I48 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

abundant for a life-time's campaign with a "circulating 
medium." Absence of studious habits affords leisure 
to move freely among the people, thus setting the man 
of more conscientious work at an immense disadvantage 
in thoughtless popular estimation. As such men work 
merely for numbers, no matter how gathered, they can 
readily distance those who have an eye to thoroughness 
and the future. The masses often fail to consider how 
infinitely easier it is to bring a dozen children into the 
world, whom you do not expect to rear, than to train 
even one child into man or womanhood. Nor do they 
know that the preacher who makes converts with a 
conscientious regard to the after-life, will often rather 
discourage than invite certain additions, or at least be 
slower, because prayerfully anxious, in his movements. 

It is now time to turn by name to the evangelistic 
visitors to Somerset and the surrounding regions. 
Space, however, is too limited to give them the full 
personal notice that could be desired ; yet it is but 
common justice that at least a passing tribute be paid 
to their names and their work. In this way, too, events 
and occurrences can be preserved that would not other- 
wise find a fitting place. And first of all comes — 

Thomas Campbell. The reader already knows that 
he was a notable Seceder minister in the north of 
Ireland, came to this country in quest of better health, 
preached in Washington County, Pennsylvania, from a 
conscientious study of the Bible turned immersionist, 
worked for a time among the Baptists, and finally with 
a larger liberty did the splendid work at Somerset 
already noted. Often thereafter his faithful sorrel car- 
ried him over and among these mountains. Two or 
three times he went even so far as Schellsburg, Bedford 



EVANGELISTS. J 49 

County, and preached in the house of Henry Schell, 
the senior, and that of Mr. Williams. In his office cf 
evangelist he would gather in new souls, and set in 
order the things that were wanting by training the 
churches and settling difficulties that would arise, 
especially when the elders were involved, as in the 
Scott neighborhood, to be mentioned in a later chapter. 
One summer he taught quite a large weekly week-day 
Bible class of young women and some young men, 
spending all the time on the first three chapters of 
Genesis. In the three months he spent here after the 
dedication, in 1844, of the first meeting-house, he took 
special pains to complete the order of public worship. 
He then started the custom, here still regularly ob- 
served, of reading on Lord's Day forenoon a resurrec- 
tion chapter after the first hymn, taking the gospels in 
rotation and using the eleventh chapter of First Cor- 
inthians whenever there is a fifth Sunday. During all 
that stay he gave out each Lord's Day Newton's hymn, 
beginning : 

" Kindred in Christ, for His dear sake, 

A hearty welcome here receive : 
May we together now partake 

The joys which only He can give." 

Father Campbell believed in long sermons, especi- 
ally in places that he could visit but seldom. Thus, on 
a Lord's Day occasion at Stoystown, in 1839, he read 
the hymn : 

" This is the day the first ripe sheaf 

Before the Lord was waved, 
And Christ, first-fruits of them that slept, 

Was from the dead received," etc. 

He commented as he read, for an hour and a half, 



I50 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

then all joined in singing it with the spirit and, no 
doubt, the understanding. This he followed with a 
most fervent prayer of unstinted length (for when that 
grand old man stood talking to his Creator he forgot 
the passage of time), and he preached for two and a 
half hours ! Think of it, ye modern weaklings, a full 
half day with the Lord in a single session ! Surely, that 
was being ' ' at home with the Lord. " And why should 
not the soul, when on its mount of spiritual transfigur- 
ation, wish to build abiding tabernacles? Who has not, 
at times, sat that long with an earthly friend? Should 
the Lord be less engaging ? This, of course, was an 
extreme instance for even Father Campbell, yet his 
loving presence and gracious words so beguiled the 
sense of passing time that none thonght of complaining. 

A. W, Campbell, son of Thomas Campbell, so far 
as the writer has learned, was not here after the stirring 
events of 1829. 

William Ballantine, that splendid scholar and noted 
Hebraist, who first preached among the Independents 
and Scotch Baptists in Scotland and Ireland, then came 
to this country and labored among the Pennsylvania 
Baptists, then among the Disciples, came to Somer- 
erset only once or twice after he had organized the 
church. He was a man of fervent zeal, distinguished 
piety, and sweet-spirited withal. Less than six months 
before his death, which occurred January 4, 1836, he 
wrote, among other things, to the editor of the Har- 
binger : 

"Brother, I beseech you tell the proclaimers not to become 
declaimers. I am sorry to hear that some have become declaimers of 
sects. Let them give themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the 
word." 



EVANGELISTS. I 5 I 

It is only boyish beginners, or narrow, inexperi- 
enced dogmatists, who think wisdom will die with them, 
that can do otherwise than here petitioned. Truth, 
conscious of its strength, can afford to "speak in love," 
and delights to be magnanimous. 

Hearing of his sickness, the Somerset church wrote 
thus to Bro. Ballantine : 

"Somerset, May 15th, 1835. 

"Dear Brother : — The favor of oux* Lord Jesus Christ be with you, 
dearly beloved in the Lord. 

"The church at Somerset have heard, with unfeigned regret, of 
the illness of one to whom we are united by the strongest ties — those of 
the gospel. We need scarcely say, that, to you, our attachment has 
not been of an ordinary character. We feel a relationship existing 
between us, to which all but Christians are strangers. As a father in 
Israel and an able instructor in the will and ways of the Lord, we have 
looked up to you with that reverence and respect which exalted talents, 
meekly and humbly exerted in the cause of our divine Master, are cal- 
culated to excite in children for a beloved parent. As a brother, we 
feel honored to be connected with you ; and our greatest joy and crown 
of rejoicing is, that, with you, we are joint heirs in the rich inheritance 
of eternal life. In your 'light afflictions,' which can endure but for a 
short season, we sympathize with you ; but we bless our heavenly 
Father that, in thus laying you low, he has brought you more nearly 
within reach of that crown of life, the object of all your cares, the con- 
summation of all your hopes. We cannot, it is true, properly appreciate 
the heavenly joys of one whose hopes are so nearly merged in fruition ; 
but we would not recall you, if we could, from those bright scenes on 
which your spirit must soon enter. No ! if we could, we would not 
deny you the glorious joy of being like Jesus and seeing him as he is. 
Long, dear brother, will we rejoice in the recollection of our pleasing, 
profitable intercourse with you here ; and when you shall be numbered 
amongst the glorious throng of the redeemed in heaven, we, whom you 
may have left below, will joy to remember the parental admonitions 
and brotherly exhortations of our triumphantly arisen friend. If God, 
in his mercy and kindness to your friends and the church, should see 
fit to prolong your stay on earth for a time, dear brother, make the 
welfare of this little church and her spiritual health and growth the 
subject of your prayers. Though we had for a season permitted apathy 



152 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

to abate our exertions in the cause of truth, we now are permitted to 
indulge the comfortable hope that there is yet good in store for us, and 
that we shall yet be instrumental in spreading the truth and recom- 
mending the gospel to the world around us. 

" And now, dear brother, if we should never again hear from you, 
or see your face in the flesh, we bid you an affectionate fraternal fare- 
-well ; and may he who has safely guided you through the journey of 
life, and, at its close, unfolded to you the joys of heaven, safely guide 
us through our weary pilgrimage, and ultimately in heaven place us 
side by side with our beloved brother Ballantine. And all the glory of 
our salvation we will ascribe to God and trie Lamb forever and ever^ 
Amen ! 

" By a unanimous order of the Church, 

"Wm. H. Posthlethwaite, Clerk." 

Bro. Ballantine's answer runs as follows : 

"Camden, May 24th, 1835. 
"To the Church at Somerset, Pa. 

" Dearly beloved Brethren: — Your late letter to me has filled me 
with exceeding joy. I was afraid that our labor was in vain, having 
heard about your dissensions as a church concerning the Masonic ques- 
tion. I was afraid that it had quite disorganized you. Your letter 
has allayed all my fears. I bless the Lord that your holy zeal has been 
excited to your own edification and to the truth of the gospel around 
you. Now, brethren, let npthing turn you aside from the holy com- 
mandment delivered unto you. Continue steadfastly in the the Apos- 
tles' teaching, in the fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and of 
the prayers. I beseech you that at no time you ab ent yourselves from 
the commemoration of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, without the most urgent necessity ; and I entreat you, brethren, 
that you go on to perfection, not laying the foundation of repentance 
for dead works ; but serving the living God ; that you come behind in 
no gift, add to faith fortitude, etc. 

" Now, brethren, we are hurrying to eternity. We must soon 
meet at the judgment seat of Christ, where every one must give an ac- 
count of himself to God. May your account and mine be with joy, 
and not with grief. The Lord bless you all, and may you be kept 
through his power, through the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto 

eternal life. 

"Yours, in the hope of immortality, 

" William Ballantine. 



EVANGELISTS. 153 

» P. S. — My ardent affection to brother Forward. I trust, as his 
name imparts, he \% forward in the work of reformation." 

Alexander Campbell, another son of Thomas Camp- 
bell, may possibly have passed through Somerset on 
his trip east, in the middle of the century's teens, col- 
lecting money for the Wellsburg meeting-house. 
There is. however, no certain knowledge of his coming 
here before May or June of 1832, though he was well 
known to the church and community through the 
Christian Baptist and the Millennial Harbinger. It was 
on his visit of the year just mentioned that an incident 
occurred which shows the blind condemnation of parti- 
sanship and hate. Through his labors some six persons 
were to be baptized at the "little ford" north-east of 
town. That day Mary Morrison had brought him 
Luther's German Catechism, from Aunt Charlotte 
Ogle's, which he put into his pocket and took along. 
At the water he spoke to the large crowd, on the sig- 
nificance of the ordinance about to be administered, 
and, without naming the author, read as follows in 
question and answer : 

What is Baptism ?■•- 

Baptism is not merely plain water, but it is the water ordained in God's com- 
mand and conjoined with God's word. 

Which, then, is such word of God ? 

Where our Lord Jesus Christ says, at the end of Matthew : Go forth into all 
the world and teach all nations, and baptize them in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 

* Wherever "baptism" and "baptize" occur, in this otherwise literal transla- 
tion of the German, Luther uses Taufe and taufen, which really mean dipping 
and to dip (these English words being directly derived from them, see Webster's 
Dictionary), and are clearly so understood and so used by Luther, as the last two 
questions and answers unmistakably indicate. Somewhere in his other writings, 
that owing to absence from home are not at hand, he says in substance, that tau~ 
fen comes from tzefen, to put deep, and so means to immerse. In the absence of 
Luther's express words, I quote from the Commentary on Matthew by Dr. J. P. 
Lange, member of the Reformed church, and the American translation by Dr. 
Philip Schaff, a Presbyterian. Dr. Lange, on Matthew, chap. ill. , uses the expres* 



154 TALE 0F A PIONEER CHURCH. 

What does baptism bestow or avail ? 

It works remission of sins, redeems from death and the devil and bestows 
eternal salvation to all who believe, according to the words of God's promise. 

Which, then, are such words and promise of God ? 

Where our Lord Jesus Christ says, at the end of Mark: He who believes and 
is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be damned. 

How can water do such great things ? 

Water, indeed, does it not, but God's word, which accompanies and is with 
the water, and the faith which in the water trusts such word of God. For without 
God's word the water is plain water and no baptism; but with the word of God it 
is baptism; that is, a grace-full water of life, and a bath of the new birth in the 
Holy Spirit, as St. Paul says to Titus in the third chapter: According to His 
mercy God saves us through the bath of regeneration and renewing of the Holy 
Spirit, whom He has poured out richly over us, through Jesus Christ our Saviour, 
in order that we. through His grace, may be just and heirs of eternal life, ac- 
cording to the hope. This is surely true. 

What does such water-baptism signify ? 

It signifies that the old Adam in us through daily sorrow and repentance 
shall be drowned, and die with all sins and evil desires, and again daily a new man 
emerge and arise, who may live in righteousness and purity before God eternally. 

Where is that written ? 

St. Paul to the Romans, sixth chapter, says: We together with Christ are 
through baptism buried into the death, that just as Jesus was waked up from the 
dead through the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in a new life. 

As this reading was progressing, the crowd of 
spectators, largely Lutheran, and ignorant of its source, 
indulged in such comments as: "What stuff!" " What 
heresy!" "What damnable heresy!" etc., etc. But 
imagine their consternation and shame when Campbell 
paused, read the title page: "Dr. Luther's Small 
Catechism," then gazed about, and finally said: 



sion, " Die Taufe des Johannes ging noch nicht in die voile Tie/e," which can not 
be adequately"expressed in English, but answers as near as may be to "the dipping 
of John did not enter into the complete depth," i. e., did not go to the bottom of 
significance ; or as Dr. Schaff freely renders it, " the baptism of John was not 
complete: in it the full idea of the rite was not completed." In a foot-note he says: 
"A play on words with reference to the etymology of Taufe from teufen, tiefen, i 
e., to plunge into the deep, to submerge. With the same reference Dr. Lange calb 
Christian baptism ' die absolute Vertiefung ' [the complete endepthing] which is 
equivalent in meaning to the apostle's figure of burial with Christ : Therefore we 
are buried with Him by baptism into death" Rom. vi. 4. 

So on the next page Dr. Lange's same play on Luther's word for baptism — 
"Die Taufe geht mit uns in die Tiefe," is rendered by Di. Schaff: " Baptism im- 
plies a descent into the depths." 



EVANGELISTS. t$$ 

"So taught Luther — so substantially teaches the word 
of God — and so, in the main, I believe !" * 

It must not be supposed, however, that Mr. Camp- 
bell ever made rough onslaughts on those who doc- 
trinally differed from him. He knew too well the place 
of a Christian gentleman. Thus, in discussing differ- 
ences with a Methodist minister, he calls him "my 
brother Abbott " {Harbinger, 1847, P- 2 ^7), and reports 
a Baltimore, Maryland, meeting as having been con- 
ducted in the following good spirit : 

" But mark ye, brethren, we did not abuse them, but preached 
down sectarianism by preaching up Christianity, feeling that there was 
no need of mentioning the former unless it were to show its incompati- 
bility with the latter. We tried to keep in the spirit of the gospel, 
that our hearers might feel it." — Harbinger, 1836, p. 286. 

It was this gentle, yet firm, bearing that gained him 
friends everywhere, proved him to be a man of real 
worth, and wrested tributes of respect from those who 
widely differed from him. The versatile Dr. Wm. 
Elder, a Somerset man, and the real author of the 
"Greenback" system of money, writing on Versatility 
of Talent, said : 

" Alexander Campbell, of Bethany, Virginia, is a profound linguist, 
a revival preacher, schoolmaster, farmer, post-master, politician, archi- 
tect, anatomist, and several other things beside, and cannot be much 
beat in any of them by anybody." — Periscopics, p. 213. 

The Somerset Weekly Visitor, published by Robert 
R. Roddy, in the issue of Wednesday, July 23, 185 1, 
speaks thus kindly: 



* Nor is it alone the untaught multitude of the various denominations that 
does not know what the grand leaders of the reformation of the xvith century 
taught. A work entitled " Orthodoxy in the Civil Courts," a verbatim official 
phonographic report of an actual trial, published by the Standard Publishing 
Company, of Cincinnati, O., shows that grave "divines," under oath, unwittingly 
condemned their own creeds and standard works m the same way. 



I56 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

"The State Meeting of the Disciples was well attended. Bishop 
Campbell preached on Saturday, Sunday, and again on Monday. The 
crowd in attendance was immense, and the anxiety to hear this dis- 
tinguished divine was very great. A number of persons united them. 
selves with the church." 

Owing to the fact that Mr. Campbell had Bethany 
College and the Millennial Harbinger on his hands, and 
was pressed from all points for letters and visits, he 
only came on important occasions, as when the church 
here was split on the Masonic question and required 
the hand of a master evangelist, or when the meeting- 
house was to be dedicated, or the work of State mis- 
sions was to be begun or superintended. Twice only, 
namely in 1844 and again in 1849, was he accompanied 
by his wife, though oftener by some young preacher, 
as A. E. Myers at the State Meeting of 185 1. 

As Bro. Myers is the only man who has heeded 
the writer's published request for facts connected with 
the Somerset church, his letter shall be given in full. 
It gives us, besides, an insight into the way Mr. Camp- 
bell improved his travels, and reveals the fact that even 
a great preacher may fail on important occasions : 

" Bethany, W. Va., January 3, 1885. 
" Dear Bro. Peter Vogel : — I have just read in the Christian Standard 
your call for facts connected with the Somerset Church, Pa. In 1851, 
being a student in Bethany College, I went with Brother A. Campbell 
in his buggy, at his request, to the Pennsylvania State Meeting, that 
year held at Somerset. He was just closing the manuscript for his 
work, Christian Baptism, etc. We took with us to read Coleridge's 
Aids to Reflection. He would drive and I would read, and when I 
would get tired reading I would ask him some question and get him 
started to talking. So, often for near a half hour, he would occupy 
' the floor,' and then say, 'Let us have more of Coleridge.' The first 
night we stayed at a tavern in Monongahela City, I think it was, and 
there that night he copied from Coleridge's work what is found in the 
last of the above work on baptism from that author. I think we reached 



EVANGELISTS. 1 57 

Judge Black's in Somerset on Thursday evening. This was our home 
during the meeting, and, I need not say, a pleasant one and to me a 
profitable one; for both of these great men were great conversational" 
ists, their minds being well stored with good things from the word of 
God, from able Jurists, from the Poets, Humorists, etc., etc. Their 
conversations were on subjects of a high order and very edifying. They 
were apt, too, in illustrations and anecdotes ; so much so that .on one 
occasion at the Judge's house, when one after another anecdote had 
been brought up, the Judge capped the climax with one, and the 
Bishop, in the midst of much laughter, said: 'Judge, I will give it up, 
I will give it up.' 

"There was quite a number of preachers present at the meeting, 
such as Samuel Church, Darsie, Benedict, Wm. Baxter, etc., etc. It 
was announced that A. Campbell would. preach his last discourse on the 
occasion on Monday evening. The Weather was very warm, it being 
July. After tea the Judge took the Bishop in his carriage for a drive. 
The audience gathered early and packed the house until there was no 
room to stand. Social meeting was carried on for a long while until 
the audience and preachers all became impatient with waiting. Finally 
the Judge drove up, and Bro. Church took Bro. Campbell into the 
pulpit, opened meeting, and the Bishop began. For about two hours 
he wandered over creation, but the latter part of the discourse was 
good. I heard him often for fifteen years, but that was the greatest 
failure of all. As we walked back the Judge said : ' Well, Bro. Camp- 
bell, you gave us a pretty long sitting.' ' How long?' asked the Bishop. 
'Three hours,' answered the Judge. 'O no,' said the Bishop. 'Yes, 
three hours by my watch,' declared the Judge. 'Well, well!' said the 
Bishop; 'I suppose the people will think, "More of Alexander Camp- 
bell's last words.' He then related that late in the life of Wm. Baxter, 
when finishing up some manuscript for a work, and feeling quite ill, he 
wrote: 'Wm. Baxter's last words.' But recovering, and being able to 
write more, he added: ' More of William Baxter's last words.' 

"Bro. Church became somewhat excited toward the close of the 
discourse, and, notwithstanding that Bro. Campbell had twice asked for 
any who wished to confess the Saviour to rise in their seats, and none 
had arisen, made quite an exhortation, but none came or arose. 

"The next day Bro. Campbell returned alone, and I took the stage 
for Cumberland, Washington, the eastern cities, and Niagara Falls, 
spending my college vacation. 

"I am, yours in Christ, 

"A. E. Myers." 



I58 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

The erection of the first meeting-house, a brick 
structure, on the site of the present one, was largely 
due to Father Henry Schell, who found it a hopeless 
task to build up a flourishing church at Schellsburg, 
and so, in the beginning of the forties, moved to Som- 
erset, bought land, donated the lot, and was prime 
mover in the work of building. The dedication of the 
house is thus reported in the Harbinger for 1 844, p. 428 : 

" I had the pleasure of a two weeks' excursion, in July, through 
western Pennsylvania; during which time we visited [Mrs. C. was along] 
and spoke in Washington, Pigeon Creek, Cookstown, Redstone, Jacob's 
Creek, Connellsville, Mount Pleasant and Somerset. . . . We only 
spoke once in all the places above named, except at Somerset, where we 
delivered some five discourses, during which some ten persons made the 
good confession. The church in Somerset, under the supervision of 
brethren Postlethwaithe and Huston, is in a good healthy state. Its 
present membership is about one hundred and forty-five members. The 
meeting-house is in a good position, being central in the town and 
scientifically constructed, so that it is a pleasure to speak in it." 

Mr. Campbell had not been here for six years be- 
fore this, and presumably his next visit is recorded in 
the Harbinger of 1849, P- 59%> as follows: 

" During August we made an excursion into the mountains of 
Pennsylvania, in which we visited the churches in Somerset, Stoystown 
and Connellsville. Bro. W. Lanphear, of Ohio, had a meeting in 
progress in Somerset, during which several additions were made to this 
excellent congregation. I have not spent a happier Lord's day, with 
any church, within my recollection, than with the brotherhood in Som- 
erset. Everything was done with great simplicity, gravity and devo- 
tion. Politically it embraces a highly respectable community, and 
numbers considerably over a hundred members. 

"There is a very interesting s ciety at Stoystown, amongst the 
most bigoted and intolerant community 1 have met with either in Penn- 
sylvania or out of it." 



CHAPTER XV. 

EVANGELISTS — CONTINUED. 

" How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that 
bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good 
tidings of good, that publisheth salvation ; that saith unto Zion, Thy 
God reigneth" (Isa. lii. 7, and Rom. x. 15). 
" But unto the wicked God saith, 
What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, 
And that thou hast taken my covenant in thy mouth?" (Psa. 1. 16.) 

In continuing the list of evangelists, and incidents 
connected with their work, it is not always possible to 
mention them in the strictly chronological order of 
their first appearance here. Even when the exact rel- 
ative order of two or more is certainly known, a slight 
deviation therefrom is sometimes advantageous for 
purposes of brevity, interest, and kindred considera- 
tions. 

J. Wesley Lanphear, a superior Christian gentleman, 
who now resides at Warren, Ohio, writes as follows, 
under date of November 27, 1885 : 

"As to myself, the less said the better. I was born Oct. 6th, 
1814, in Yates county, N. Y. This makes me seventy-one years old 
on the sixth day of last month. My parents were deeply religious. 

159 



l60 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

My father* was a preacher, first in the Methodist church, then in the 
" Christian Connection," and finally a Disciple. He was a man of 
great natural eloquence and strict integrity. He spared no pains in in- 
stilling into the minds of his children the great principles of mor- 
ality and religion. 

" We emigrated into Ohio in 1832, locating in the woods at Bruns- 
wick, Medina county. I left there in 1836 and entered on my life's 
work. It was in this first considerable tour that I reached Somerset. 
My educational advantages were only those of the celebrated district 
school. Have often said, if rich, the main part should go for educa- 
tional purposes. It is the lack of this that causes me to so highly ap- 
preciate it." 

Earlier in the same letter occurs the following : 

" My relation with the disciples at Somerset was that of an evan- 
gelist, engaged to preach the blessed word there and in the regions 
round about. There was no definite understanding as to the amount of 
pay or time of employment; yet I was well sustained — the brethren 
were liberal. The call came to me while in Maryland, in the autumn 
of 1837,1 having visited Somerset in the spring of that year in com- 
pany with James Darsie. This was my first call. I presume the breth- 
ren were influenced as much in it by the idea of fostering and encour- 
aging me in the noble work of the ministry as anything else. Most as- 
suredly I am more indebted to them than to any other people on earth. 
In fact they made me, so to speak. The field included the Morrison- 
and-Scott neighborhood, a few miles south-west of town, Stoystown, 
Shade, Johnstown, Schellsburg, Turkey-Foot, Dunganon, with a num- 
ber of points the names of which I fail to recollect. 

".At Somerset, Chauncey Forward was mainly the preaching elder, 
though all were preachers in those days. They were in admirable 
condition — pious, warm-hearted, zealous, and full of love to God and 
man. They were mainly a class of people who imparted character and 

-Stephen Lanphear, father of Wesley, died March, 1853, at his residence in 
Medina county, Ohio. For more than a generation he preached the gospel in Ohio 
and Pennsylvania. See Harbinger, 1853, P- 7^- 

f This date should be, as in the previous extract, 1836 ; for Bro. Darsie's recollec- 
tion is clear that they came to Forward's but a few days after the latter's first 
wife, Rebecca, had died, which occurred March 8th, 1836. After preaching a 
few sermons each, both went into Maryland, and Bro. Darsie left Lanphear at 
Beaver Creek to preach regularly for that church till his call to Somerset in the 
fall. 



EVANGELISTS. l6l 

tone to society. Take them all in all I have never met their superiors 
anywhere. Their personal influence was very potent." 

The following incident, since stereotyping, has been 
attributed to Norman Lanphear. On one occasion when 
Lanphear came there to preach he found the common 
school-house occupied by the Methodist preacher. The 
gentlemanly Lanphear at once became a respectful list- 
ener, but was closely observed by ' ' his friends, the ene- 
my. " Immediately after the benediction, he arose and 
was about to ask the people to remain and hear him. 
Suddenly the candles, placed around the walls, were 
blown out. Just as suddenly the quick-witted Lanphear 
placed his tall form against the door to stop egress. A 
voice then called out: "Go on, we will hear you." 
Observing just then that the check-mated Methodist 
minister and his chief aids were seeking relief through 
the windows, Lanphear announced his text: "The 
wicked flee when no man pursueth ; but the righteous 
stand bold as a lion :" and proceeded to illumine earth's 
darkness with powerful flashes of heavenly light ; and 
for quite a while the spell-bound auditors forgot that 
candles were customary at that season of the night. 

A later tour of Wesley Lanphear and John Henry 
is announced in the Harbinger 'as follows: Turkey -Foot, 
October 27 and 28, 1840; Laurel Hill,* October 29; 

* On page 8 and 9 of Chapter viii., the writer confouuded this Laurel Hill 
with another Laurel Hill. This Laurel Hill, which should be Laurel Creek, whose 
post-office is Trent, is the place where the Scott's School-house church reorgan- 
ized, and is some three miles south of west from said school-house It finally 
merged into the present New Centreville church (post-office, Glade), to be described 
further on. 

The other Laurel Hill, where the funerals spoken of might advantageously 
take place, and whose post-office is Bakersville, was constituted about 1873, and is 
nominally under the control of the Somerset church. That is to say, though it has 
officers of its own, the deed of the church-property, dated January 27, 1877, is 
vested in " David Husband and Henry F. Schell, the (then) Elders of the Congre- 



l62 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

Somerset, October 30 and 31, and November 1 and 2 ; 
Shade, November 6, 7, 8 and 9. 

Parts of three reports, taken from the Millennial 
Harbinger and relating to Somerset as then headquar- 
ters of missions, must close this notice of Lanphear: 

"Somerset, Pa., Nov. 18, 1850. 
" Bro. Ca?npbell : — . . . Bros. Lanphear and McDougal are 
both in the missionary field of Pennsylvania. — C. L. Loos." 

"Somerset, Pa., Jan. 24, 1851. 

"Bro. Campbell: — . . . The brethren engaged in the general 
State mission have, so far, done very well. Bro. Lanphear is preaching 
west, and Bro. McDougal east, of the Alleghanies. Each one has 
selected several points of labor, to which they expect to give their 
whole attention for the present. . . . The coming year the 
brethren expect to send at least six missionaries into the field. — C. L. 
Loos." 

"Somerset, Pa., Jan. 29, 1851. 

"Bro. Campbell: — In the 'general field' we have Bros. Lanphear 
and McDougal, and intend to send forth Bros. Bevins and Lobingier. 
The good effects of our movement are beginning to be felt ; and al- 
though there have not yet been many additions, there has been much 
good seed sown, which we hope will germinate and bring forth fruit to 
the honor and glory of God. — We had a meeting about the holidays 
which resulted in six additions, four by immersion and two that had 
been immersed elsewhere. Our congregation is in a healthy state. — J. 
J. Schell." 

James Lanphear, a physician and uncle to Wesley, 
held a meeting here of six or seven weeks in June and 
July, 1834. A relative writes of him thus: 



gation of the Church of Christ, and their successors in office, in trust for the use, 
of Disciples of Christ worshiping in the vicinity where said house is situated, in 
Jefferson township, Somerset county, Pennsylvania." This was done under the 
leadership of L. F. Bittle, chiefly because Somerset furnished most of the means to 
build the house, and makes Somerset in some degree morally responsible for any 
bad condition of affairs allowed there, though the conservatism that has always 
characterized this church has so far kept them from using any authority, except 
an indirect tendering of inefficient advice. 



EVANGELISTS. 1 63 

" He was quite gifted — powerful in exhortation, but unfortunate 
in his marriage, always getting into trouble. A few years since, he 
died in Medina county, Ohio." 

An ''unfortunate marriage," like the famous x of 
algebra, stands for a good deal in the equation of 
many a life. The meeting, however, was quite a suc- 
cessful one, resulting in some thirty additions, among 
whom were Melvina Stewart Wolgamot, Julia Coffroth 
Henneberger, Ann Carson, Elizabeth Huston Hamil- 
ton, Cornelia Blair, Catharine Johnson, Mary Ogle 
Kimmell, Julia Snyder Lint, etc. 

Mr. Snyder, or rather Schneider, lived about a 
quarter of a mile east of town, and had forbidden his 
children to attend such heretical meetings, though his 
daughter Charlotte Ogle had already cast her lot with 
the " Campbellites." When one day, however, Julia 
was going to the spring-house, she heard what 
seemed to her the most heavenly music borne 
across the meadow where a baptismal service was 
progressing. Then and there she resolved, come 
what might, she would attend the next even- 
ing's meeting. She did so ; and more, she united 
with the church. But, as was customary in those 
days, her Lutheran father ordered her from home 
as a punishment. So she spent a year with her sister, 
Mrs. Louisa Schell, who was also a Disciple, and then 
married Mr. Lint, who still enjoys life with her in 
Somerset, though he has never made profession of 
Christianity. 

Norman Lanphear, cousin to Wesley, though by no 
means an able preacher, was nevertheless quite a suc- 
cessful man in his way. His understanding was 
superior to his delivery, and his management exceeded 



164 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

both. In Pennsylvania he first preached about Pine 
Flat, Indiana county, and went from there to Schells- 
burg, Bedford county, about 1838, where he worked 
on a farm for five or six months, preaching on Lord's 
days at Schellsburg and a place called the Ridge, some 
seven or eight miles north, in a Freewill Baptist meet- 
ing-house, but failed to gain them over to the Restora- 
tion movement. He afterwards preached at Somerset, 
Scott's school-house, and various other points in this 
and adjoining counties. He wrote to the Harbinger, 
from Indiana county, thus : 

Blairsville, Pa., Febuary 26, 1840. 
" Peace and health be multiplied unto you through the knowledge 
of God and Jesus Christ our Lord ! The cause of the reformation is 
progressing slowly in this section of the country. Last June we orga- 
nized a congregation*" of seventeen in number in this vicinity; six have 
been added since. We are striving to maintain the apostolic practices. 
The congregation in Johnstown,. Cambria county, is advancing moder- 
ately toward the mark of our high calling, increasing in knowledge and 
numbers. I understand there was a congregation of twenty-five in 
number, organized last fall or summer at Stoystown, Somerset county. 
I have not visited that section since. — Norman Lanphear." 

James Darsie was born December 13, 181 1, at Ed- 
inborough, Scotland. He came to New York City 
when seven months old. In 1824, at the age of twelve, 
he was baptized in Pittsburgh,! under the eldership of 
Walter Scott and Sidney Rigdon, the latter having 
united his Baptist Church with that of Walter Scott. 
The baptist was John C. Ashley, father of James M. 
Ashley, Congressman from Ohio. Darsie began to 

* Blairsville Church afterward increased to about forty members, but want of 
a leader and liberal removals proved its early death. 

t The first Christian Church of Pittsburgh, says Elder Darsie, was organized 
in the year 1817. Its chief members were George Forrester, Thomas Campbell, 
James Darsie, Sr., James Henderson, and James Hanen. By removals it went 
down about 1819, but was reorganized in 1820 by Walter Scott in his school. 



EVANGELISTS. 1 6$ 

speak in church when only fifteen years of age, and 
gradually grew into preaching, but was never ordained. 
He had preached a long while before he became satis- 
fied that ordination by the imposition of hands, accom- 
panied with fasting and prayer, is a spiritual require- 
ment. Before this he had confounded it with the 
miraculous impartation of spiritual gifts, and so had 
adjudged it as part of the original scaffolding necessary 
to the erection of the Christian building, but, now that 
it is up, no longer needed. The writer has on several 
occasions seen Bro. Darsie engage in ordination services 
as the chief actor, and can not accept as sufficient 
reason for its neglect the fact of having been a long 
time in the service before discovering the personal duty. 
In 1832, James Darsie and Robert Forrester of 
Pittsburgh made a short preaching tour into Washing- 
ton county, Pennsylvania. In March, 1836, as already 
noted, Darsie and Wesley Lanphear together came to 
Somerset, put up with Chauncey Forward, each 
preached a few times, then went into Maryland. After 
five weeks of joint labor in Washington county, Mary- 
land, Darsie left Lanphear with the Beaver Creek con- 
gregation while he went to a stream called Conocochea- 
gue, where he preached till Lanphear came with horses 
and eight dollars in cash to help him part of the way 
to Schellsburg, Pennsylvania. For his preaching at 
the latter place, Father Henry Schell, through his son 
Henry F. , gave him two dollars, which he was in doubt 
whether it was right to take. Being helped on his way 
to Somerset, where he spent a night, he then went to 
Pennsville, four miles from Connellsville, and preached 
for the church there, and finally returned to Pittsburgh, 
told his tale, and was roundly scolded asa " hireling 



1 66 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

preacher" for having taken the immense sum of ten 
dollars for two or three months of labor ! 

After his marriage to the youngest daughter of 
Judge Lobingier of Mt. Pleasant, he settled in Fayette 
county with the Bethel Church, and also preached some 
at Connellsville, and often visited Somerset and other 
regions in Washington and Fayette counties. In 1862 
he moved to Peters' Creek, Washington county, Penn- 
sylvania, for two years, and in 1864 moved to Tulon, 
Stark county, Illinois, where he stayed eighteen months, 
and, on the death of one of his daughters and the fear 
that another one would die, he came in the fall of 1865 
to Somerset as pastor. Afterward he moved to Brad- 
docks, served as financial agent of Bethany College, 
and now lives at Salem, Ohio, preaching for the church 
there. We shall meet him again when the pastorates 
of Somerset are considered. 

Webb, whose initials are not recollected, came from 
Ohio, travelled through Somerset county preaching at 
sundry points, went to Beaver Creek and Hagerstown, 
Maryland, and came to Schellsburg, Pennsylvania, about 
1 83 1 or '2. At the latter place he stirred up quite a 
commotion by his — for the first time — preaching Disci- 
ple views in that region. He occupied the Reformed 
and Lutheran houses in turn, and spoke for two hours 
at a time. Those churches little suspected what Trojan 
breech was implied in the walls of their traditions by 
the admission of this Grecian horse pregnant with gos- 
pel war. While the immediate result was small, only 
one or two baptisms, the breech made meant a good 
deal, as will be seen later. 

Several items of this tour are worth preserving. At' 
Hagerstown Bro. Webb made such bold headway that 



EVANGELISTS. 1 67 

Pedo-baptists generally became alarmed, and with one 
consent appealed to the Lutheran minister, Samuel K. 
Hoshour, to deliver them from the enemy. Hoshour's 
superior scholarship and ability were universally ac- 
knowledged, and had the implicit and explicit confi- 
dence of all. Thus appealed to, Mr. Hoshour, with 
his usual deliberation, took a month for accurate prep- 
aration, that the effect might be all the more definite 
and crushing. Of course, he first examined the works 
of the great Luther, which stood in their original 
tongues on his shelves. As he now looked with a dili- 
gence that never possessed him before, he was beyond 
measure astonished at the weight of passages like this 
one, in Vol. I. 336: 

" Baptism is a Greek word, and may be translated immersion, as 
when we immerse something in water, that it may be wholly covered. 
And although it is almost wholly abolished (for they do not dip the 
whole children, but only pour a little water on them), they ought 
nevertheless to be wholly immersed, and immediately drawn out; for 
that the etymology of the word seems to demand." 

In Luther's Church-postil, on the gospel for the 
third Sunday after the Holy Three Kings, or Epiphany, 
219 sq. , he found the following poser on infant baptism : 

" There are some who hold that every one must believe for him- 
self, and in personal faith receive baptism or sacrament ; if not, then 
is baptism, or sacrament, of no benefit, etc. Such people speak and 
hold rightly. But others proceed and baptize just as well the young 
children, and sin against the second commandment because they take 
God's name and word non-beneficially and in vain, with bad conscience 
and willfully. The excuse, also, does not help them that they say and 
give out : The children are baptized with respect to their future faith, 
when once they may come to understanding; for faith must be before, 
yea, present in baptism. If we can not answer and show up better 
with respect to the faith of young children, that the young children 
themselves believe and have personal faith, then it is my faithful 



1 68 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

counsel and decision that we abstain at once, the sooner the better, 
and nevermore baptize a child ! that we may not mock and sin against 
the Most Praisable Majesty of God with such nonsense and tomfoolery 
in which there is nothing." 

Other authorities were consulted with the same 
amazing effect. His familiar knowledge of the original 
Scripture languages led him to read God's ipsissima 
verba — His very words — with a closer, because awak- 
ened, accuracy ; but all to the same conclusion : that 
hitherto his faith, his preaching, and his practice bad 
been traditionary and of human invention ! Hence- 
forth, his conscience cried, it must be scriptural and 
divine. So he asked his congregation to give him leave- 
of-absence for ten days that he might go into the 
mountains of Virginia. Them he not only climbed, but 
he did not stop till he reached Bethany, and talked 
with Alexander Campbell and ranged through his more 
extensive library. He returned, as in fact he went, a 
changed man, and at his home asked baptism, that is, 
immersion, believers' immersion, at the hands of Daniel 
Winters. Thus his scholarly campaign against the 
enemy ended like Saul's fiercely-meant assault on 
Damascus. 

And how do you think, kind reader, this affected 
those who had so highly regarded his scholar- 
ship ? Ah ! scholarship was all right so long as it 
championed their traditions, but now that he had be- 
come of the enemy it was heartily discounted and con- 
sidered as having made him "mad." Twenty, how- 
ever, of the best in the Pedo-baptist churches followed 
him into the new fold. 

The Lutherans had been paying him the then large 
sum of $1,000 per annum for his services. The new 



EVANGELISTS. 169 

movement rented the town hall, and finally offered him 
one-half more to preach for them ; but his wife, who 
did not share his view 7 s, and firmly believed herself 
eternally disgraced, absolutely refused to live longer in 
the community, and threatened to leave him if he did 
not leave with her. So he went West, where she finally 
herself became a devoted Disciple, and he eventually 
took a professorship in the Northwestern Christian, 
now Butler, University. 

Before finishing with Hoshour, another scene must 
be reenacted. John F. Kantner was married to Sarah 
Duble, July 2, 1818, by Rev. Benj. Cutts, at Funktown, 
Maryland, and afterwards lived at Hagerstown. He was 
Reformed, and she Lutheran. The first child, J. H. 
Kantner, was duly " christened " by his minister, Rev. 
Martin Bruner. But for some reason, afterwards there 
came a lull. Meanwhile Mrs. Kantner's sister joined 
the Tunkers. As heresy like this must be resisted, 
Mrs. Kantner studied the Scriptures with a special view 
to giving her sister battle at an expected meeting. But, 
unfortunately for her, all the passages she could find 
(and she studied the Bible through) seemed to point to 
immersion and her perversion ! She ended her investi- 
gation with changed views, but in silence; only, from 
one pretext or another, the children were not * ' chris- 
tened/' though Joseph, and Sarah, and Lizzie, had 
somehow managed to get names. No doubt, this was 
all " unorthodox," but still it was a fact. The accum- 
ulated sense of duty at last weighed heavily on Mr. 
Kantner, till he insisted that the matter must be no 
longer delayed. So in 1834, an ^ to facilitate matters, 
he called in a Lutheran minister, the Rev. Charles 
Schafer. On his arrival, Mrs. Kantner brought the 



I^O TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

children in, duly prepared (in body) to ' ' receive bap- 
tism." Next she set a bowl of water on the table and 
beside it laid the Bible and a five dollar bill. " Here," 
said she, "are the children, the water, the money, 
and — the Book. Show me your authority out of this 
Book, and then proceed." Here was quite a " circum- 
stance " — for a minister ! Had it been the catechism, the 
case could have been easily enough managed. After 
some hesitation, however, he finally found courage to 
say: "There is no direct authority in the Bible for it, 
but it is one of the rules of the church." It is, per- 
haps, needless to say that here occurred an " exception 
to the nde" % and the five dollar bill was saved for more 
substantial purposes. 

This prepared the Kantners to hear Disciple preach- 
ing, and finally to get ready for baptism. So one day 
they took a change of clothing and went four miles 
north of Hagerstown, where a Disciple minister by the 
name of Jacobs was holding meeting. But they found 
his style so abusive of the "sects" that they returned 
in disgust without being immersed. Afterwards, how- 
ever, they removed to Stoystown, Pennsylvania, heard 
a different style of preaching from Bro. Caldwell, and 



* Nor are such occurrences all of the past. Of several *t hand, take this : In 
March, 1885, while A. P. Cobb was holding a successful meeting at Somerset, the 
resident Lutheran minister, Rev. J. F. Shearer, was preparing for the coming 
Easter communion. As in Lutheran duty bound, he looked up the unchristened 
infants. In his rounds he called on Mrs. H. Shaulis, one of his flock, whose 
husband religiously belonged nowhere, and duly engaged her baby for the occa- 
sion. Then he called on Mrs. Noah Hoover, sister to Mrs. Shaulis, and whose 
husband is also an outsider. As Mr. Shearer was bespeaking the baby of Mrs. 
Hoover, her husband opened his pocket-book and offered him both the child and a 
five dollar bill on condition that he should prove from the Bible his warrant for the 
procedure. After a few unsatisfactory remarks, the Reverand gentleman left 
without claiming the money or engaging the child. And more: when the Shaulises 
learned the facts in this case, they also thought best to keep their child from at- 
tending church so early in life. 



EVANGELISTS. 17 i 

became devoted disciples. Being a man of some ability, 
Bro. Kantner became elder at the organization of the 
Stoystown Church, holding the position till 1844, when 
he removed to Somerset and finally became deacon 
here. So did his son John H. See Chapter VIII. 

The friendship formed at Hagerstown between the 
Kantners and Samuel K. Hoshour continued through 
life. The only letter attesting it that has fallen into the 
writer's hands is also valuable on other accounts, and 
is, therefore, here given : 

" Indianapolis, May 25, 1874. 

"Bro. John F. Kantner— My Dear Sir:— ... I was glad 
to learn that in your advanced age you enjoy a good degree of health ; 
that the gospel in its primitive simplicity furnishes you much support. 
That is my experience. What is knowledge, outside of the gospel, 
worth, when we are grappling with ' three-score years and ten,' in the 
vicinity of the bourn whence no traveler returns? It is the pure word 
of God that can save us from ' perishing in our afflictions.' The gospel 
is a power that we ca.nfeel when age more or less separates us from the 
active throngs around us, whose stirring greed after the world will fin- 
ally jostle us from the stage of present existence ! 

" The tone of your letter, in places, is rather desponding with re- 
gard to the continued purity of the faith as you and I received it nearly 
forty years ago. You seem to have apprehensions that 'unsound' men 
are going to barter the ' truth ' for sectarian recognition and popularity. 
I think that is not so much the case as the editors of the Review are in 
the habit of indicating. Efforts to establish order in our ranks are lia- 
ble to be ascribed to motives that do not exist. I have some acquaint- 
ance with the leading brethren throughout the brotherhood, and know 
of non ■ that are disposed to relinquish the grounds we took in the start 
of the cause for which we plead. But there is a growing conviction 
among our leading brethren that we lack that cooperation which can 
give efficiency and stability to the cause; that this cooperation requires 
association or concentration of our influence and means ; that this must 
be effected by delegated meetings, I mean meetings of delegates who 
can understand the true state of things among us and devise plans for 
giving strength where there is weakness, for saving what is going to 



172 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

loss, and for establishing the cause where it is not. These are my 
convictions. 

"As regards my personal circumstances, I would remark that I am 
now in my seventy-first year — am still Professor of the Modern Lan- 
guages in the University, and can teach as well as ever; am active of 
limb, good appetite, a little fuller in the face than formerly. Wife and 
I are the only inmates of our house — both trying to prepare for a better 
life. I hope that this will find you well. Write me again. 
"Yours fraternally, 

" Samuel K. Hoshour." 

Philip G. Young, a doctor of medicine and dentistry, 
and married to a daughter of Judge Lobingier, came 
from Mt. Pleasant to Somerset in 1832, and did some 
evangelizing under the care of the Somerset Church. 
Having heard of the Schell family and the stir that 
Webb had made in that vicinity, Dr. Young was en- 
couraged to go to Bedford County in February in 1833. 
This resulted in the baptism of Henry Schell and wife, 
and the two eldest sons, Jacob being twelve and Henry 
F. being ten and a half years old. 

The conversion of the Schell family to Disciple 
views is interesting both in its own history and in its 
importance to the Somerset and other churches. Henry 
Schell was an elder in the Reformed Church of Schells- 
burg. His family eventually consisted of six still living 
sons (Alexander J. died young) and three surviving 
daughters. In the order of age the sons are: John 
Jacob, Henry F., Andrew J., Charles L. , Hanson Y., 
and William H. Of these, Henry F., John J., and 
Andrew J. still reside in Somerset; the first two and 
the father having filled the offices mentioned in Chapter 
VIII. Charles L. is deacon in Beatrice, Nebraska, 
Hanson Y. resides in Springfield, Missouri, and William 
H., who lives in Washington, D. C, is a well-known 



EVANGELISTS. 173 

preacher of the gospel. Two of the daughters hold 
their membership here ; Amanda J. is wife of Prof. J. 
J. Stulzman, " the father of public schools in Somerset 
County," and now teaching in this borough, and Emma 
J., widow of Dr. Ed. M. Kimmell, is mother of Dr. 
H. S. Kimmell, while Louisa Miller lives near Hagers- 
town, Maryland. 

A Presbyterian minister, on coming to Schellsburg 
in 1832, found J. J. Schell so bright a lad that he pro- 
posed to the father to send him to Canonsburg, Wash- 
ington County, Pennsylvania, to study for the ministry. 
The father replied that Jacob was inclined to be a 
Baptist, and that, too, from his unaided reading of the 
Bible. "That is all right," said the preacher, "if he 
will only be a regular Baptist, and not a ' Campbell- 
ite. ' ' This was the first time the boy heard that nick- 
name. He had, indeed, heard Webb preach once or 
twice, and had talked some with his aunt, Charlotte 
Ogle, who visited there about the time of Webb's 
coming ; and he had committed all of Matthew's gospel 
to memory. He used to ask his father such trouble- 
some questions as, "Why can't people be just Chris- 
tians now as of old?" A student for the ministry was 
teaching school in that neighborhood, who took him in 
hand and told him (what, by the way, he never saw in 
any good lexicon), that baptizo means also to sprinkle 
and to pour, and that en and eis are very slippery prep- 
ositions. When Jacob would ask, How, then, does it 
come that the Bible says they were baptized where 
there was "much water," that Jesus came "up out of 
the water, " and that people were ' ' buried in baptism " ? 
his father was shocked at the presumption of the lad 
who would dare to question the word or assertion of 



174 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

even an embryo "minister.'* Father Schell was so 
loyal to his church that he refused to see Webb im- 
merse Ben. Williams, and busied himself with sowing 
wheat. The boy's questions, however, found a ready 
ear in his mother, and even began to trouble the father 
more than he dared to confess. So the father bought 
himself a new Bible and diligently read it through, 
marking all the passages that referred to baptism, that 
he might give them special study. But, search as he 
would, he failed to find satisfactory proof of sprinkling 
or infant baptism. It became general talk that Elder 
Schell was in trouble over theology. Some Baptists in 
an adjoining neighborhood took an interest in the mat- 
ter, and sent Elder Woods, with no sort of doubt but 
that he would baptize him into the Baptist fold. From 
the time of his arrival, on through the night, and till 
the break of the next morning, the conversation went 
spiritedly on, but still Elder Schell could not see why men 
should ' ■ repent (and be baptized) because of the remis- 
sion of their sins " (see Acts ii. 38). As the physicians 
say, Elder Woods found the case so stubbornly critical 
that he could do nothing further for him. When finally 
Dr. Young came on the stage of action, Elder Schell 
had so fallen from grace that his own meeting-house 
was forbidden ground to the new preacher, and even 
the common school-house was locked against him The 
Elder's former great influence lay in ruins, demolished 
by the much-vaunted Protestant principle of ' ' private 
judgment " ! Private judgment is all right, you know, 
provided you do n't ask questions that the minister 
can 't answer. Elder Schell's parlor and that of widow 
Nancy Williams (a woman of superior intellect and 
Webb's first convert there) henceforth had to serve as 



EVANGELISTS. 175 

meeting-places — the one for town and the other for the 
country. Several others were at one time or another 
immersed, till the number of those who, ' ' on the first 
day of the week, came together to break bread," 
reached about nine. The membership at no time was 
larger, chiefly because the people grew afraid to hear. 
Why do men hold to doctrines that can not bear public 
investigation ? Will the Lord change His law to suit 
our willful prejudices ? 

Finding it impossible to have such a church there 
as he wished, Mr Schell, in 1841, moved to Somerset. 
Here he found a strong church, the strongest in the 
place, needing some one to go ahead in the matter of 
building a suitable house of worship ; and so he found 
vent for his zeal and his means. He enjoyed the satis- 
faction, too, of seeing his children, one by one, as they 
grew old enough, becoming members of Christ's body, 
and filling honorable stations in life. 

On the fourth page of Chapter VII. will be found a 
letter from Dr. Young to the Harbinger, which gives 
us, chronologically, the next item of information. This 
sketch can be best finished by here introducing — 

Hanson Painter, also a doctor, and presumably a 
student of Dr. Young. Thompsonianism was all the 
rage then, especially among preachers, as Homeopathy 
seems to be the fashion now. That, at least, was the 
case in this region ; and all the grandfathers and grand- 
mothers have a burning recollection of No. 6. In 
those. impecunious days the practice supplemented the 
preaching. Dr. Painter was originally from Virginia, 
and came with Dr. Young from Mt. Pleasant to Som- 
erset in 1835, did some preaching about here, married 
Miss Clarissa Loehr (cousin to the Schells), afterwards 



I76 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

practiced medicine in Bedford, and about 1838 moved 
with the Loehrs to Illinois, settling at Bloomington 
and dealing in live stock. 

In answer to a call from Henry Schell, Somerset 
sent Drs. Young and Painter to Schellsburg in 1835. 
On their arrival, he drove them in his carriage to Mor- 
rison's Cove, Cumberland Valley Township, in the 
eastern part of the county, where the "Christian Con- 
nection," or "Bible Christians," were holding their 
Septennial Convention. The meeting was held in a 
grove, and was well attended by their preachers. On 
Saturday Bros. Young and Painter were introduced as 
representing the Disciples of Christ. Dr. Young was 
asked to preach on Lord's day morning, and give a full 
statement of the position of the Disciples of Christ. 
Waxing warm in his two hours' discourse, in true 
primitive fashion, he literally laid off his coat and did 
his best. After the song that followed, the Doctor de- 
sired a public expression on his preaching. He put the 
question in this form : ' 'All those who are in favor of 
a union on the principles this day set forth will please 
arise." All but twenty stood up. Next he called for 
a negative expression in the same manner, when only 
one arose, and that an old lady. Unfortunately, this 
movement was not followed up, and so yielded only 
indirect results. How much this meeting contributed 
to the later coming over in Pennsylvania into the Dis- 
ciple ranks of whole conferences of that people, it is 
perhaps impossible to say. 

It is, however, to be regretted that at Bloomington, 
Illinois, in his advanced years, Dr. Young turned 
Spiritualist. 

George H. Caldwell lived in Cumberland Valley 



EVANGELISTS. 177 

township, Bedford county, and was present at the 
above meeting. The whole family belonged to the 
Bible Christians, and meant all that their act implied 
when they rose in the affirmative of the question voted 
on. The father, who had been preaching for the Bible 
Christians, was now joined in the new work by his son, 
who wrote thus to the editor of the Harbijiger : 

Bedford County, Pa., Feb. 6, 1836. 
"There are not many disciples in this county, but I think there 
are many who will receive the truth. There is, in the southern part 
of this county, a considerable number of Bible Christians; and some 
of them receive the truth, others do not. My father has labored nearly 
thirty years, and through him and others occasionally the churches 
have been gathered. I expect you are apprised of the union that took 
place last summer, when Bro. P. G. Young and others were visiting 
us ; but still there are some bitterly opposed. D. Long and Lewis, 
from Ohio, visited this county lately, and opposed the truth, and did 
much injury by misrepresenting the disciples on every occasion where 
they did not have us to face. On one occasion Long spoke at a two 
days' meeting, and said every thing he had ever heard (and could think 
of) against the disciples. In speaking of you, he said that he had a 
conversation with you, and that you said, to him you could regenerate 
people — trying to impress it on the people that you say you can do all 
that is necessary for salvation. — George H. Caldwell." 

Some time in 1838 the younger Caldwell came to 
Henry SchelFs to be directed into some likely field of 
labor. Bro. Schell sent him to Stoystown, or rather to 
Sprucetown, a much smaller place a mile east of Stoys- 
town. He gave him a letter of introduction to a 
friendly acquaintance, a merchant by the name of 
Samuel Kimmell, and sent his son Jacob along as guide 
and hostler. On Saturday evening Caldwell preached 
in the Sprucetown school-house. Sunday morning 
found the crowd too great for the house, so they held 
forth under some trees near by. Somerset was repre- 



1/8 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

sented by Judge Kimmell. In answer to an invitation 
at the close of the sermon, 

Charles Lav an, a Baptist, responded, saying that he 
was dissatisfied with his former baptism because he did 
not then understand the true purpose of the institution. 
He was now baptized "for the remission of sins." We 
have already met this man (page seven of Chapter IX.) 
in connection with the Johnstown Church, to which he 
returned, preached some for them, and then went west 
to preach. 

For Lord's day evening Bro. Caldwell's meeting 
was appointed in the Stoystown school-house. On his 
arrival there, the house was found to be occupied, 
through prior appointment, by a minister of the Evan- 
gelical Association. Bro. Caldwell urged him to go on 
according to his appointment, which he did, speaking 
on the necessity of faith and repentance. Then Cald- 
well arose, substantially endorsed the sermon, but al- 
leged that faith and repentance were preparatory acts, 
which, according to the Saviour's great commission 
and apostolic teaching, must be completed in obedi- 
ence, beginning with baptism in order to the enjoy- 
ment of the remission of alien sins and the "putting 
on of Christ." As he ceased speaking, the first minis- 
ter felt called on to dissent from the position taken, 
since the thief on the cross went to paradise without 
baptism. Again Caldwell arose and called attention to 
the fact that that took place before the issuance of the 
Saviour's commission to all the world, and indeed before 
the new covenant could possibly have taken effect, 
since, as Paul says, ' ' A Testament is of force after 
men are dead ; otherwise it is of no force at all while 
the testator liveth ; " that Peter, to whom the keys for 



EVANGELISTS. I jg 

the first opening of the New Testament kingdom were 
committed, had then not yet, as afterwards at Pente- 
cost, opened that kingdom to men ; and that the Priest- 
hood of Jesus, in whose name alone remission of sins 
is now granted, had not then been begun, for Paul ex- 
pressly says, " If he were on earth, he should not be a 
priest." These statements he closed with an earnest 
appeal for men to enter the kingdom by the door as 
opened on Pentecost and to avail themselves of the 
provisions of this heavenly Priesthood. Seven individ- 
uals responded to this call, among them John F. Kant- 
ner and his wife. The meeting was continued some 
days and twenty-five became obedient to the faith. 

On September 14, 1839, Bro. Caldwell returned, 
found the number of believers somewhat increased, 
became the instrument of adding twenty-five more, and 
organized in the Samuel Kimmell school-house with 
sixty-four names, appointing John F. Kanter and 
Edward Bevins as elders. The school-house in which 
the Shade Church then met, and where Caldwell also 
labored, was only five miles distant, and their more 
experienced elders, John Birkebile and Samuel Hunter, 
by solicitation of the Stoystown Church, regularly 
alternated on Lord's days in lending them aid till they 
knew how to help themselves. 

Of course other points in Somerset county were 
visited by Bro. Caldwell. But some time thereafter 
the Caldwells moved to the State of Indiana, their 
original home, where some of the family still live. 
Geo. H. Caldwell, however, in November, 1847, re_ 
turned to Washington county, Maryland, the home of 
his wife's people, and located at Boonsboro' ; preaching 
there and at Beaver Creek, Smoketown, and Caneco- 



l80 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

cheague, as he writes it. A year or two later he died, 
being in the delirium of fever as a letter from the 
Schells reached him urging his return to this county. 
Thus fell, in early manhood, one of the purest spirits 
that ever preached the gospel of God's grace in this 
county. But he was ripe for glory, so the Lord took 
him early, leaving many an old reprobate to the further 
chances of His grace — "not willing that any should 
perish, but that all should come to repentance." 

In a lengthy letter, Caldwell wrote to John F. 
Kantner, January 19, 1848, as follows: 

"Every remembrance of you awakens sentiments of gratitude and 
Christian affection that make your memory more agreeable. Soldiers, 
who have for a time stood side by side in the Christian warfare, become 
doubly endeared to each other — especially when they have mutually 
proved themselves worthy of the good cause in which they are engaged. 
It is thus that confidence is inspired, love confirmed, and the connection 
between kindred spirits established. And may we not add that this is 
more than 'telegraphic' connection, that it is more than 'magnetic' in- 
fluence, yea, that it is that divine and spiritual influence that pervades 
the body that has this one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, ONE faith, one 
baptism, one God and Father who is above all, and through all, and in 
all." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

EVANGELISTS — CONCLUDED. 

It will be of historic interest, before continuing with 
the more local narrative, to show to the present gener- 
ation, by a few additional quotations, how Alexander 
Campbell, the then leading teacher in the movement 
joined by the Somerset Church, guarded and guided 
the evangelizing interests. This is also of present prac- 
tical advantage, inasmuch as there are still at least a few 
corners in Pennsylvania and elsewhere where the fol- 
lowing words of scriptural wisdom are needed : 

" There is, however, little or no general cooperation ; no general 
organization ; no mutual understanding ; no coming together in one 
place in cases of emergency, and for the dissemination and support of 
the gospel, and mutual encouragement of one another in the work of 
the Lord ; and that, forsooth, because some men have abused such 
meetings, converting them into legislative halls, into spiritual high 
courts of judicature and inquisitorial tribunes, for proscription and 
excision. 

" Instead of some mutual understanding and cooperation, every 
little congregation of one or two scores of men, women and children, 
feels itself authorized to send out whom they will as evangelists and 
public instructors, as regardless of what is fitting as they are incompe- 
tent to act advisedly in matters of such high and public concern and 
importance." 



1 82 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

"Some gross hypocrites and other ambiguous characters are sent, 
or run unsent by any respectable church for intelligence and high 
moral worth ; and, when once adrift, they migrate, like swallows, from 
one country to another, as their character wears out, and are ever and 
anon abusing the confidence and unsuspicious benevolence of the 
brotherhood."- 

"And who does not know that a consummate hypocrite and im- 
poster can wheedle and beg from some two or three good-natured, ac- 
commodating spirits a suit of traveling credentials, that will safely con- 
duct a polygamist, a horse thief, or a gambler, from one State ;o 
another and aid him in his diabolical projects?" — Mill. Bar., 1841, 

PP- 534-35- 

"The apostles themselves, who acted sometimes as deacons, some- 
times as bishops, but oftener as evangelists, furnish us the best and 
fullest models for those who should be chosen by congregations to pro- 
mulgate the gospel in our own times and country." — Mill. Har., 1835, 

P- 523- 

"Into whatsoever house he [the evangelist] enters, it is for peace 
and not for war. He prays for peace on every dwelling. He is not 
censorious, pharisaic, nor disgustingly familiar. . . . He sacrifices 
everything to human prejudice, but truth, honor and righteousness. 
True to his Lord and faithful to men, he ' speaks the truth in love.' He 
sees, he knows the world is full of darkness, ignorance, superstition 
and error. He removes the darkness, not by inveighing against it, but 
by presenting the light, and seeks to reform the world more by persua- 
sion than demonstration." — Same, p. 524. 

" Some who call themselves evangelists in this our day more strik- 
ingly resemble the ostrich than the first preachers. The ostrich drops its 
egg in the sand, and leaves it to the sun and the sand — to heaven and 
earth — to take care of it; and then itinerates the desert." — Same, p. 

527- 

" When a person, once eminently useful, has fallen into some gross 
sin, there is less excuse for him than for any other person. ... I 
would as soon hold up my hand for him that sold his Master for fifteen 
dollars, as for such a one to plead the cause of righteousness and the 
holiness of the gospel." — Mill. Har., 1836, p. 121. 

" But if penitent, ought not such a one to be restored ? To a place 
in the congregation only. . . . And what are the proofs of repent- 
ance in such a case? Self-abasement, profound humility, shamefaced- 
ness, a disposition to sit back and retire from the public gaze." — Same. 

" Since the days of Judas, who sold his Master for fifteen dollars, 



EVANGELISTS. 1 83 

till now, there have not been wanting those who assumed the garb of 
Christianity for the sake of making provision for the lusts of the flesh. 
. . . Judas, for all that appears to the contrary, when sent by the 
Mess ah to announce the approaching reign, was just as successful in pro- 
claiming the word as any of the twelve. We sometimes mistake when 
we appeal to what is called the usefulness of men, or their success in 
preaching the word, as evidence that the Lord is with them. Neither 
the word of God nor the ordinances of the gospel derive their virtue 
or influence from him that administers them. . . . Neither talent, 
nor usefulness, nor great success, are to be plead in the absence of jus- 
tice, humility, purity and the love of God. An immoral person is not 
to be trusted, countenanced or sustained as a preacher of righteousness, 
if he had the zeal of Paul and the eloquence of Apollos. ... To 
see a professed preacher of truth and purity outbraving all discipline, 
defying the authority of the congregation, incensed at those who will 
not countenance him in his course, and denouncing brethren because 
they are conscientious in obeying the precept found in I. Cor. v. 2, is, 
to me, a new sort of evidence that God has forgiven him! But if God 
had forgiven him, and the brethren too, does it follow that he must be 
elevated to the place from which he fell ? . . The Lord forgave 

Moses for a hasty word and action, but he would not suffer him to lead 
Israel into Canaan." — Mill. Har., 1834, pp. 614-16. 

A people is rightly judged, says a discerning friend, 
by its public representatives ; and whenever such men 
receive aid or comfort by individuals or communities, 
knowing their characters, the fair conclusion is that 
their abettors are like unto them. Alas ! that private 
history should be disclosed by such public advocacy. 

Public functionaries are as pulse-beats to the body. 
There is always hope that any sore on that body will 
heal if only the pulse be normal, but the danger be- 
comes alarming if the life-giving pulse is also involved. 

"Another portion of our more gifted and ingenious cohorts have 
addicted themselves to the enviable task of public censors of the senior 
theologians. Boys in their teens, or youths who for years to come would 
not have been permitted to lay a leg of mutton on God's ancient altar, 
are now gravely and learnedly exposing the errors of Luther, Calvin, 



184 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

Wesley, the Synods of Dort, Westminster and Trent, cwn multis aliis, 
with as much self-approbation and secret relish as the most exquisite 
sensualist devours a favorite dish when his appetite is stimulated with 
the pickles of Maecenas and a feast of full twelve hours. These are the 
wild beasts of our Ephesus, with whom it is more difficult to conflict 
than with those with whom Paul fought in the capital of Asia. Yet 
these are workmen who are never ashamed, but always glory in their 
success in what they call preaching the gospel of peace. . . . 

"'Such a preacher gave the Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, 
or some other party a good and decent whipping,' said Deacon Pugna- 
tius to his friend Hairesis, who immediately applauded him for his 
talents and services. He received his reward, and continues to improve 
in the arts of castigation." — Mill. Har., 1842, pp. 245-6. 

" Thousands affirm the conviction that the making of disciples is 
a work of far inferior importance to that of saving those that are made. 
And certain it is that the teaching and discipline of the disciples is in 
all the apostolic writings the great object. Without bishops and well- 
accomplished teachers there is little or no importance to be attached to 
the work of baptizing— not a tithe of the baptized can enter the king- 
dom of heaven." — Mill. Har., 1842, p. 327. 

Space and purpose, however, forbid additional quo- 
tations from the same high source, that might be both 
abundantly and advantageously made on numerous 
other phases of the evangelistic calling and mode of 
operation. The more local history awaits attention. 

Marcus Bosworth, being about forty-six years old, 
first came to Somerset early in 1840. He was born, 
reared and married in Massachusetts ; he then moved 
to Braceville, Trumbull county, Ohio, where he and 
his wife first joined the Presbyterians, then the Baptists, 
among whom he was licensed and ordained to preach, 
and finally he, together with that church, came over into 
the Disciple ranks. His wife managed the farm while 
he traveled as evangelist. He was emphatically a man 
of prayer, a fluent conversationalist, hortatory in style 
of preaching, easily moved and easily moving to tears. 



EVANGELISTS. 1 85 

At his first coming he made Somerset headquarters for 
three months. His work was thus reported : 

" Somerset, Pa., April 21, 1840. 
" Bro. Bosworth has fully met the expectations of the brethren 
here. He is a sound, practical man, full of knowledge, zeal, and the love 
of the gospel. He has added twenty-five by immersion to this and the 
neighboring churches of this county — has excited much attention and 
investigation, which we doubt not will result in much good. In short, 
any community must be blessed with the labors of so excellent a 
brother. But, more than all this, it gives me much pleasure to add 
that the church at this place is increasing in the faith, order and prac- 
tice of the gospel, the maintenance of which will do much toward the 
promotion of the good cause in this country. May the Lord prosper 
still more extensively His own cause throughout the world. 

" W. H. POSTHLETHWAITE." 

Once, at Lavansville, four miles west of Somerset, 
having preached in the house of Sister Mark Ross, he 
went north of the village to immerse. As he was re- 
turning, Rev. Peter Rizer, the Lutheran minister, 
stepped out to the road and said, "John baptized in 
En on near to Salim, because there were many springs 
there." Bosworth' s reply was, " If many springs, then 
much water; and if much water, then many springs." 

Bosworth died at his home in 1847, having made 
three visits to Somerset. One of these was with — 

Capt. Amos Allerton, of Deerfield, Portage county, 
Ohio. He was a tall, wiry man, who as an infidel at- 
tended Walter Scott's meeting with the avowed inten- 
tion of whipping the preacher, but ended the first 
session with his enrollment as soldier of the cross, and 
afterwards became a captain of the Lord's hosts. 
The incidents respecting his Somerset county work are 
of dim recollection ; but distinctly is it remembered 
that at the Scott school-house he thought such adorn- 
ments as flowers on ladies' bonnets too earthly for 



1 86 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

spiritually minded people, but revised his notions, or at 
least kept them in abeyance, when at Somerset Sister 
Posthlethwaite entered church with a beautiful rose on 
her bosom. 

" For of the soul the body form doth take, 
For soul is form and doth the body make." 

John Schaffer, native of Westmoreland county, 
Pennsylvania, where, under Rev. Wagenhals, he stud- 
ied for and was ordained to the Lutheran ministry, 
afterwards moved to Columbiana county, Ohio. There 
he married a sister of Jonas Hartzel and became a Dis- 
ciple, choosing the poverty that belonged to the then 
unpaid Disciple ministry rather than the good salary he 
was receiving in his old faith. He visited Somerset 
twice, at an interval of two years, each time evangel- 
izing in the county for several months, preaching mostly 
in German. His first coming was in 1 841, when, at a 
meeting six miles east of Somerset, at a place also 
known as " the Ridge," he brought in, among others, 
the Knupp family. His favorite hymn on that and 
similar occasions began : 

" Moch ten's doch die Menschen sehen 

Wie sie Gott so herzlich liebt ; 
Haufig wtirden sie bald gehen 

Zu Dem, der die Siind' vergibt." 

Jacob Knupp had eight sons and five daughters. 
The boys could read English and the girls German. 
These the father would range by families into two facing 
rows, especially on Sundays, and read with them the 
Scriptures, verse about, he beginning in German, then 
a boy in English, followed by a girl in German, and so 
on to the end of the exercise. 



EVANGELISTS. I §7 

John Flick, about this time, came here from Belmont 
county, Ohio. He was born and reared in Somerset 
county, and his relatives still live in and about Somer- 
set. His principal mission was the introduction of 
Alexander Hall's Gospel Proclamation, a monthly, and 
the sale of " Universalism Against Itself," the real 
author of which was James Rossell.* He did, how- 
ever, considerable preaching, largely in German. To 
illustrate the fallaciousness of purely psycological evi- 
dence of pardon, he would bring up the case of a 
young man who sought to divine from the ringing of 
the church bell his chance and duty with reference to 
marrying a certain young lady. As he really desired 
the union the triple-stroking bell readily said, " Marry 
the girl," " marry the girl," etc., etc., and of course 
he was "happy." When, however, afterwards some- 
thing occurred which made him disinclined in that di- 
rection, a second consultation of the same oracle pealed 
out, "Let her alone," "let her alone," and he did. 
Now, how much more sensible it would have been to 
just ask the girl herself. So when you wish to get 
knowledge of pardon, why not consult the same divine 
word that preaches your doom, gives you your only 
knowledge of heaven, and says, " He that believeth 
and is baptized shall be saved " ? 

John Henry ; known as " the walking Bible " because 
he could repeat it by chapters and books, was a sweet 



*That is to say, that James Rossell, who recently died at California, Pa., had 
a debate with a Universalist minister in Ohio, whom he utterly routed by his orig- 
inal method of turning Universalian weapons against Universalism. Hall was 
present, and was so taken with the effectiveness and novelty of the course that he 
asked the privilege of taking the notes home. He then wrote the book in question, 
and laid it before Elder Rossell, saying, "As this is yours more than mine, let us 
publish it jointly." Rossell not caring to do so, with his permission Hall published 
it alone. 



1 88 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

singer and able to play nine different musical instru- 
ments. He was over six feet in stature, of fluent 
speech, and possessed most wonderful reasoning pow- 
ers. He also was born in Pennsylvania, in Washington 
county, but during his manhood lived in Austintown, 
Mahoning county, Ohio, where he owned a farm, and 
where he was buried in 1844, at the age of forty-seven. 
" He never lifted his spear but in victory," and the vic- 
tories were always great. During October and Novem- 
ber of 1840, in company with J. Wesley Lanphear, as 
already noted, he made the tour of Somerset county. 
His songs, as all true songs are, were pictures of heaven 
with a living soul in them. 

William and A. S. Hayden were brothers, and also 
the fathers of Hiram College, the latter being its first 
principal. The former was born in Westmoreland 
county, Pennsylvania, and the latter in Youngstown, 
then Trumbull county, Ohio. Walter Scott said, 
"Give me my Bible, my Head, and Bro. Wm. Hay- 
den, and we will go out and convert the world." De- 
pending on his Austintown farm for a living, Wm. 
Hayden was, nevertheless, absent from home, for 
twenty-five years, on an average of two hundred and 
forty days and nights every year. These journeys reached 
from Syracuse, New York, to the Mississippi, and 
from Canada to Virginia. In many of them the brothers 
were together, though the latter was more of a pastor 
than an evangelist. While both were men of splendid 
preaching ability, and in this respect did grand work, 
they were the pioneers of song among the Disciples. 
A. S. Hayden published the first note-book in our 
ranks. As the power of song is a large factor in our 
moving of people after their enlightenment and convic- 



EVANGELISTS. 1 89 

tion, the per cent, of our success due to these compos- 
ers and singing pilgrims is very great. They came 
together into this county on several occasions, doing 
efficient work, and abide in heart memory. About 
1856 A. S. Hayden was here by himself as chief speaker 
at an annual meeting. 

Chauncey Ward came from Ohio early in the forties. 
He had been a Presbyterian layman. Few men were 
more successful preachers than he. First he made 
Somerset his headquarters, preaching here, at Stoys- 
town, Shade and Johnstown. Then he lived at Ebens- 
burg,* serving there and at Johnstown, both in Cambria 
county, and a few other points. Early in February, 
1842, while preaching at his first four stations, a Meth- 
odist minister by the name of Williams, who also 
preached at Stoystown, said on a Sunday of Ward's 
appointment : " Next Sunday I will preach on baptism 
and ask the Reverend gentleman to be present." 
Ward's arrangements demanded his absence, yet he 
asked: "Brethren, what shall I do ? Shall I let my 
other appointment go?" They pressed him to do so. 
The regular place of preaching for both Methodists 
and Disciples was the Union School-house, conveniently 
situated ; but, that Mr. Williams might have absolute 
control, he bargained with the Lutherans for their 
house, though quite a little distance out of town. 

*Ebensburg is the Cambria county-seat. The church there was originally 
Baptistic, principally composed of Welsh people, and came into the restoration in 
or before 1834, under the leadership of Festus Tibbott and Benjamin Davis. It has 
since been ministered to by Chauncey Ward, Wm. Lloyd (who still lives there), 
Wm. H. Schell, George Clendennin, H. B. Cox, Witting, A. S. Morrison, H. C. 
Cooper, and B. F. Bower, its present pastor. Their present hous«, 40 by 60 feet, 
costing; $6,000, was built in 1868. The church has, at times, been quite large, amd 
numbers now about ninety souls. Its Sunday-school was started in 1845, an( i i s 
now superintended by Richard Tibbott. The elders are Wm. Lloyd and John 
Tibbott; the deacons, G. Jones, Wm. Williamson and Richard Tibbott. 



I9O TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

Nevertheless the house was well filled, the sermon be- 
ginning at 1 p. m. A number of Somerset Disciples 
were also present, Samuel Huston* among them. 

* We have already met Samuel Huston several times, especially as associated 
with William H. Posthlethwaite in the eldership, and will again meet him on other 
important occasions, so that we might as well take a good look at him here. He 
was born at the very beginning of 1811 ; baptized by Forward in 1831 ; by the same 
married to Miss Nancy Meese, April 16, 1833; ordained bishop by Alexander 
Campbell late in 1839, and died March 17, 1856. His widow and five daughters are 
still members of the Somerset church, two of the latter being also widowed. His 
only son lives here too, though not a member of any church. The widow is too 
palsied to attend church services. Samuel Huston was a man of uncommon bodily 
strength, had red hair, and was a carpenter by trade. Always dependent on his 
daily toil for his living, he yet so conscientiously shepherded the church that not 
a lamb could be absent on Lord's day without receiving a visit from him on Mon- 
day or Tuesday. Though the words were not then written, his song was in sub- 
stance — 

" This one of mine 
Has wandered from me ; 
The way may be wild, and rough, and steep, 
I go to the desert to find my sheep." 
Often late into the night, after a hard day's work, he would be moving about 
among the members of the church. As he and his brother, Chambers Huston, us- 
ually worked together at their trade, and carpenter work, even on houses, was then 
paid by the several pieces, Chambers would oftei^ work by himself and count it as 
if both were at it, that Samuel might spend a half day or so every now and then 
among the membership of the church. 

It grieved him to see brethren waste time on secret societies. One such, 
whom he failed to persuade to be married to the Lord alone, told the writer that as 
he once unexpectedly passed into Huston's back yard, he heard him on the stable 
hay pleading with the Lord in his behalf, and that decided him. 

Huston was no ready speaker, and yet he frequently went into adjoining 
neighborhoods to publicly urge upon the people the claims of the Saviour. At 
home he was the baptist and a trusty counselor. Everywhere the sick called him 
to their bed-sides for his helpful prayers. Church members ?nd friends from the 
country all knew and proved that they knew he kept open house. 
" He, only, in a general honest thought, 
And common good to all, made one of them. 
His life was gentle, and the elements 
So mixed in him, that nature might stand up 
And say to all the world, This was a man .'" 
Said the Somerset Democrat in obituary : " Perhaps no one of all our citizens 
enjoyed the confidence of his neighbors to an eq lal extent; and we know that no 
one deserved it more fully than did the subject of this notice. Pie was one of God's 
noblemen — a Christian and an honest man." L. R. Norton wrote in the Christian 
Age : " In his death was fulfilled that beautiful saying of David, ' Mark the per- 
fect, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace."' And C. L. Loos 
added: "A noble man, truly, has fallen in Israel." 



EVANGELISTS. I9I 

Ward sat on the front bench, facing the speaker, quietly 
resting his head on his propping hand, and occasionally 
taking a note. To forestall any questioning of his 
progress, Mr. Williams had prefaced his speech by the 
vigorous statement, "No one but a blackguard will 
interrupt a speaker." During its progress he made 
abundant assertions as to the force of the Greek, and 
occasionally said, as he made a point, "Stick a pin 
there." Of "burial in baptism" he disposed by as- 
serting that in those days burial was effected by lay- 
ing the dead upon a shelf in a vault. He occupied 
three hours, and gave room for remarks. Owing to 
lateness in the day, Ward refused to speak then, but 
announced his reply for that evening in the Union 
School-house. Before the set hour had arrived, the 
house was literally packed, three occupying the place 
of two on the benches by sitting on one another's 
knees, and every foot of standing room was taken. Mr. 
Ward urged Mr. Williams, who came late, and Mr. 
Williams' supporting minister, Mr. Haynes, into the 
stand. When Ward came to "burial in baptism," he 
called attention to the ridiculous figure Peter must have 
cut at the Saviour's tomb by ' ' stooping down " to look 
way up on a shelf! When Williams, unable to contain 
himself longer, rose to make statements, Ward quietly 
said: "You told us this afternoon that no one but a 
blackguard will interrupt a speaker. Sir, I do not 
envy your position." The effect is better imagined 
than told. During the progress of the speech Mr. 
Haynes indulged in half-aloud talking to Williams, evi- 
dently for a purpose. John Kantner, seeing this, at 
last went up, and, shaking him by the shoulder, said : 
" Either behave or come away. " The earnestness in 



I92 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

his eye had an instantaneous effect. Ward made short 
work of the afternoon Greek by simply quoting a few 
authorities, then asserting that no one who had any fair 
knowledge of that tongue could hold otherwise ; and 
lastly by offering Mr. Williams his Greek Testament 
and asking him to translate a given passage to prove 
his knowledge of the tongue and competency to ex- 
pound it. The book was not taken. ''How much 
stock do you now take in his learned disquisitions?" 
asked Ward of the audience. That ended the whole 
affair. 

Ward followed up that day's work with a two weeks' 
meeting, gaining twenty-eight or thirty accessions, 
among them N. B. Snyder, a Lutheran ; James Carson, 
a Presbyterian, and Miss Mary Garmen, a Roman 
Catholic. 

In March following, Mr. Ward held a meeting in 
Somerset, and made large inroads among the Lutherans ; 
Mrs A. J. Schell and Mrs. James Parson, two sisters, 
and granddaughters of Mary T. Graft, being of the 
number. Thereupon the Lutheran minister, Rev. 
Peter Rizer, urged thereto by his members, announced 
a sermon on baptism in his church. Ward, however, 
kept on with his meeting in the court-house, while 
Samuel Huston and others heard Rizer and took notes. 
The sermon proved to be largely accusation and abuse, 
such as charging that these Campbellites dragged chil- 
dren out of houses at midnight, cut holes into the ice 
and soused them in. ''My God!" he exclaimed, "how 
long are the citizens going to permit it?" When, after 
the benediction, Samuel Huston announced that the 
sermon would be reviewed in the court-house on the 
next evening, Rizer exclaimed, "Am I not safe in my 



EVANGELISTS. 1 93 

own pulpit any more ! Is there no officer in the house? 
'Squire Pile — where is 'Squire Pile?" Thereupon sev- 
eral men started to put Huston out of the house, but, 
as all were going out any way, no hand of violence was 
laid on him. The sermon, of course, was duly re- 
viewed ; the meeting continued, and the number of ac- 
cessions swelled into the neighborhood of fifty. 

Such were some of the stirring scenes of the past. 
They were certainly not the most advantageous to the 
finest development of piety,, and yet in fulfillment of 
the Saviour's words, ' ' I came to cast fire upon the 
earth ; and what will I, if it be already kindled ?" Peace 
is desirable, but sometimes it has to be conquered. 
"First pure, then peaceable," are also inspired words. 

Sad to say, however, Ward left Ebensburg about 
1845 or '6 under a serious cloud. 

L. P. Streator, now living near Washington, Penn- 
sylvania, came into this State in October, 1840, from 
the Western Reserve, having been originally sent out 
as evangelist by the Windham, Portage county, church. 
He writes : 

" My first visit to Somerset was in October, 1842, when I was 
looked upon as too small a preacher for the Somerset pulpit. Fortun- 
ately, however, I grew. Afterwards I held several good meetings 
there. In 1852 I spent five weeks with them, dividing the time (Sep- 
tember and the fore part of October) between Berlin, Stoystown and 
Somerset. The church at Somerset then had more talent than any other 
in the State." 

He has been here at various other times since, 
chiefly at cooperative meetings. 

Nathan J. Mitchell was born March 2, 1808, in 
Pikerun township, Washington county, Pennsylvania, 
but afterwards moved with his parents to Belmont 



194 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

county, Ohio, where he married Miss Sarah Bye Packer 
and became a Disciple. A visit to his wife's people 
brought him> in April, 1832, to Howard, Centre county, 
Pennsylvania. The plea of the Disciples never having 
been heard there, he soon found himself so successfully 
engaged in the Bald Eagle and adjoining valleys that he 
could never permanently leave. One of his visits to 
his Ohio home brought him on his return trip to Somer- 
set, in March, 1836, on the evening before Bro. For- 
ward's first wife died. Owing to the gloom cast over 
the community, it seems he did not preach. He came 
here, however, in i860, from Lockhaven — where he 
died November 30, 1886 — and held quite a successful 
meeting, an incident of which has been noticed in the 
chapter on Judge Black. His extensive and useful life 
is fortunately preserved to the public in a characteristic 
biography entitled A Pioneer Preacher. 

Edward Bevins was born in Manchester, England, in 
181 1. When he was nine years old his parents landed 
in New York, then lived for a number of years in Phil- 
adelphia. Afterwards they moved to Steubenville, 
Ohio, where the mother died. Father and son, being 
weavers by trade, changed from city to city at the invi- 
tation of more remunerative employment. Eventually 
Edward Bevins came to Stoystown, Pennsylvania, to 
work in the mills of John F. Kantner. He was of 
small stature, but somewhat heavily set. He knew the 
rules of the prize-ring to perfection, and had a season's 
experience as leader of a minstrel troop, made up of 
Stoystown talent, of which he was chief singer in 
black. Whether "Queensbury rules" were then in 
vogue the writer hereof is too ignorant to say, but he 
has it from Bevins' lips that long after he "had quit 



EVANGELISTS. 



195 



that sort of foolishness, " which, indeed, he never fol- 
lowed as a serious business, a brother, who believed it 
to be most healthy exercise and had unlimited faith in 
his own perfection in the art, nearly pestered the life 
out of Bro. Bevins, on a certain occasion of visit to 
said brother's place of business, to put on the gloves 
"just once " and have a little exercise. At last Bevins 
said, "Well, to please you, I will do it 'just once.' " 
So saying, he adjusted the " accouterments, " and stood 
near a corner of the room, facing diagonally across it. 
Said brother advanced, and, aiming to break through 
his guard, threw all the weight of his body into his 
blow ; but the aim passed over the head of Bevins, he 
having squatted to give it passage. As Bevins quickly 
rose, said brother found himself impaled, hip and 
shoulder, on two fists, en route for the opposite corner 
of the room on an aerial excursion over benches, etc. 
Though this occurred a score or more years ago, and 
said brother still lives, he has to this day never been 
able to lay his finger on his fondness for the "exer- 
cise." 

Bevins had been sowing wild oats with a somewhat 
free hand ; but having united his fortunes with Miss 
Mary Pisel, of Stoystown, he thenceforth wove a 
steadier web, and pitched his tent at Laughlinstown,* 



* There was no Disciple church at that time in Laughlinstown, though Alex- 
ander Campbell perhaps about that time preached, in passing, to outdoor audiences 
with horse and saddle as pulpit. Considerable preaching was done there, more es- 
pecially in Ligonier (a larger place some three miles west), by Bros. Bevins, James 
Darsie and others, and a church organized, which went down. The present or- 
ganization in Laughlinstown was effected, in 1875, by S. A. Allen. The member- 
ship numbers now about thirty-five. In 1884 and '5, Neal S. McCallum gave them 
one-eighth of his time (the fifth Lord's days) and led them in the building of a 
house, 30x40, costing $1,200, which was dedicated by the writer on the first Lord's 
day in 1885, followed up by four days preaching with four or five additions. Since 
then E. W. Gordon (then of McKeesport, now of Wiljiamsport, Pennsylvania) has 



I96 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

Westmoreland county. Upon receiving word from his 
father that Pittsburgh offered superior openings, he 
went there. By this time Samuel Church had baptized 
his father and his step-mother. Then Bevins first, and 
afterwards his wife, also became obedient to the faith, 
being immersed by the same minister. Not many 
months thereafter Bevins returned to Stoystown, just 
in time to become there a charter member of the new 
church, and with his employer, John F. Kantner, elder 
of the church. Not only did these two elders guide 
and teach that church, but Bevins took occasion to pro- 
claim Christ outside of the village, as at the John Pen- 
rod School-house, a mile west. About 1850, in the 
large exodus that broke up the church, he moved to 
Somerset, where Kantner already was, and where, as 
already noted, the latter became deacon and the former 
elder. Here Bevins wove but little, depending for 
about fifteen consecutive years on a grocery store for a 
living, which his wife could see to while he went here 
and there to preach Christ. In his humility he de- 
lighted rather to second the labors of others, as those 
of L. R. Norton and Prof. C. L. Loos, but would go 
by himself rather than not have the work accomplished. 
This he did with untiring zeal, though in much feeble- 
ness of body, having his constitution seriously shat- 
tered by a three months' typhoid fever in 1852 and '3, 
which the doctors then knew not how to treat. Unable 
to stand country diet, he carried tea and some other 
articles always with him. Necessary change of beds, 
especially the infliction of those cold and unventilated 



held them quite a successful meeting. Though they have no regular preaching, 
they assemble regularly for the breaking of the loaf and devotional exercises. J. 
C. Morley is the acting elder. 



EVANGELISTS. 1 97 

"spare beds," which are the preacher's bane, and 
other incident exposure, made him suffer intensely from 
rheumatism ; but yet, as long as he could creep, he 
preached Christ for mere nominal or no compensation. 
During the years 1870 and 1871 the writer, being then 
in charge of the Somerset church, learned to prize him 
highly. Especially was an insight into his fervency of 
zeal and simplicity of godliness gained at a protracted 
meeting held for and with him at Shade, in April, 1871. 
His songs, as by him sung, had soul in them. As to 
style of tune they suggested, but in no objectional 
way, his minstrel experience ; and as to matter, his 
utter objurgation of his earlier life and his complete de- 
pendence on Christ for acceptable righteousness. As 
more highly prized than a photograph of his physical 
form, the reader is asked to gaze on that of his soul as 
expressed in his favorite song, Show Pity, Lord* here- 
with given. 

Bevins preferred to gather people into weak 
churches already in existence, but on demand of occa- 
sion he would venture a new organization. Thus, in 
the fall of 1 87 1, he pushed beyond Hooversville, up 
into the Alleghanies, in the Bedford edge of Shade 
township, and planted a crmrch of ten members at 
Daley P. 0.\ 

*The writer knows nothing of the parentage of the music, or its original 
form, and has heard it rendered in numerous ways. But the melody, as here 
given, is as Bevins sung it, according to the writer's clear recollection. The har- 
mony has been kindly adjusted by Prof. J. H. Fillmore, of Cincinnati, Ohio. 

I Daley is a lovely spot when you once get there, and reminds one of descrip- 
tions he may read of some of the mountain valleys of Switzerland. Some trout- 
hungry city preacher would find Bro. David C Lambert's just the place for a brief 
summer vacation, provided he is not too lazy to preach for his trouble. Under 
Bevins' nurture the church grew. Since then, in 1881, they built a chapel, 28x36, 
worth $1,000. For two years recently they were served by Neal S. McCallum, 
once every other month, and now number about sixty members, some of whom 



198 



EVANGELISTS. 



SHOW PITY, LORD. 




:Es=:^E^zzz^E^ : zzi3 



*£(*=* 



Show pity, Lord ; O Lord, forgive, Prepare me, Lord, to die: 
Let a re-pent-ant reb - el live, Prepare me, Lord, to die. 




Will the wa-ters be chill- y, Will the wa-ters be chill -y, 



^ 



v=x 



- c i — I- 







Will the wa - ters be chill - y, When I am called to die. 



^ 



t — r — h 



£=t: 



t=t 



2 Are not Thy mercies large and free ? 

Prepare me, Lord, to die; 
May not a sinner trust in Thee ? 
Prepare me, Lord, to die. 
Cho. — Will the* waters, etc. 

3 My crimes, though great, can not surpass 
The power and glory of Thy grace. 

4 Great God, Thy nature hath no bound, 
So let Thy pard'ning love be found. 

5 O wash my soul from ev'ry sin, 

And make my guilty conscience clean. 

6 Here, on my heart, the burden lies, 
And past offenses pain my eyes. 

7 My lips, with shame, my sins confess, 
Against Thy law, against Thy grace. 

8 Lord, should Thy judgment grow severe, 
I am condemned, but Thou art clear. 



■&r 



1 



EVANGELISTS. 199 

9 Should sudden vengeance seize my breath, 
I must pronounce Thee just in death ; 

io And if my soul were sent to hell, 
Thy righteous law approves it well. 

1 1 Yet save a trembling sinner, Lord, 
Whose hope, still hov'ring round Thy word, 

12 Would light on some sweet promise there, 
Some sure support against despair. 

In the winter of 1872 he also had a hand in the or- 
ganization of the church at New Centreville * (P. O. 
Glade), ten miles southwest of Somerset. 

As Bro. Bevins came home from a mountain trip, 
in 1875, and dropped into the Somerset prayer-meeting, 
he found their zeal, at least on that particular evening, 
burning less brightly than the fires he had been kindling 
in the high places. As leader on that occasion, he 
called on this one, then on that one, both brethren and 
sisters, to take some public part in the services, and 
was largely refused. Then he arose, read the hymn, 
"Am I a soldier of the cross," and by rapid, fervent 
comment made its meaning stand out, then asked all 

live at quite a distance. Their Sunday-school holds only summer sessions, and is 
superintended by William Flegel. David C and J. C. Lambert are the elders, and 
Samuel Flegel and David Ling are the deacons. 

* There were a few remnants of tbe Turkey Foot church and some of Laurel 
Hill (or Laurel Creek), as well as some resulting from transient preaching at New 
Centreville. These, twenty-three in all, Bros. Bevins and M. L. Streator gathered 
into a provisional organization in the winter of 1872, appointing David Younkin, 
Aaron Boucher and William Flick as elders. In September, 1874, they purchased 
the old Methodist chapel, 28x40 feet, and now worth about $400. Part of the pur 
chase money came from the sale of the Turkey Foot house. The cause moved on 
slowly, for the church only met for transient preaching by Bevins, E. L. Allen, 
James Darsie, David Husband and J. B. Pyatt. No regular meetings were held 
till the first of March, 1877, when Bros. S. Teagarden and Hiram A. Hartzell held a 
p~~tracted meeting of eleven days with eighteen baptisms. On the seventh of the 
ff living July, reorganization, rather than a permanent organization, was effected 
by choosing Aaron Schrock and H. B. Barnes as elders, and William Flick, Aaron 
Boucher and David Younkin as deacons. Thenceforward they met regularly for 
the breaking of bread and for prayeis. Teagarden preached again for them in 
August, and held another protracted meeting in October, 1877, with fifteen acces- 



200 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

who had a true will to sing it "with the spirit and with 
the understanding also." Said a sister but recently, 
"Till then I had never taken a public part in devo- 
tional exercises, but then and there I resolved that this 
should be true no longer." Her conduct since has been 
in continual redemption of that promise. 

As elder of the church here, Bro. Bevins had a 
happy way of reproving wrong-doers or arousing the 
negligent. "Was your attention ever called," he 
would ask such, " to the beauty, import or gravity of 
such and such a passage ?' ? then go on to quote it with 
a brief comment on the point he wished to emphasize. 
It was thus that he made God's word indeed a "ham- 
mer " to break the sinful heart, or a "fire" to burn 
away its dross, or the " oil of joy" to the sorrowing. 

Rheumatism finally confined him to his home, and 
palsy released him from earth February 12, 1878, in a 
most triumphant death. His mortal remains sleep be- 
side those of his aged father ; and his childless widow 
still mourns his departure, and in faith awaits the 
eternal reunion. 

IV. T. Moore, now missionary in London, England, 
and editor there of the Christian Commonwealth, held 
two meetings in Somerset. The first one began Janu- 
ary 21, 1858, and, in reporting it for the Millennial 

sions, and Bittle preached for them monthly for half a year. At his suggestion, 
Kincaid of West Virginia, held them a meeting in December, 1878, with three ad- 
ditions. M. B. Ryan located with them in September, 1879, giving them half of his 
time for two years. So also did T. F. Richardson for one year and three months, 
beginning January 5, 1881. Neal S. McCallum served them monthly from April, 
1884, till his resignation in the beginning of 1886. Since then they have had no 
preaching except a week by Peter Vogel beginning November 14, 1886. On Janu- 
ary 10, 1887, Vogel expects to begin them a protracted meeting with a view to ar- 
range for some one to serve them regularly a part of the time. Though their 
membership numbers only about sixty, they are the wealthiest church in the 
county. Their Sunday-school Superintendent is W. H. Barron, of New Lexing- 
ton. The present elders are William Flick and Aaron Schrock. 



EVANGELISTS. 201 

Harbinger of that year (p. 238), he says: "Thirty-six 
were added, and one other confessed, but was forbid- 
den to be baptized by her parents." An incident with 
a lesson in it occurred in this meeting. A thoughtful 
gentleman of Ligonier, Westmoreland county, who had 
been favorably impressed with the plea of the Disciples 
as presented by Ed. Bevins and James Darsie, came over 
to hear Moore with the intention of uniting with the 
church. But Moore's oracular and dogmatic handling 
of the convictions of those differing from him so re- 
pelled the gentleman in question that he went home 
and joined the Methodist church. 

Moore's second meeting here began August 1, 
1862, with a manifest change of style. He had not 
lived the intervening years without profit and growth. 
There were twenty-five additions. It was in this meet- 
ing that he preached the funeral of Mary T. Graft. An 
incident of this meeting is sent by a sister whose mod- 
esty requests that she be nameless : 

" Bro. Archer, a sweet singer from Bellaire, Ohio, was with Bro. 
Moore. On the last night of the meeting, after the congregation had 
been dismissed, Bro. Archer and Bro. Moore sang the ' Shining Shore,' 
which was then new and had never been heard in Somerset. Many 
lingered to listen, among the number Grandmother Ogle and the 
writer. I stood opposite her, and as I unconsciously raised my eyes to 
her face I saw a sight I shall never forget. She stood with her hands 
on the back of the next seat, and the expression of her face recalled 
that wonderful experience of Dr. Payson before his death, when, as he 
expressed it to his friends, he was in the land of Beulah. You remem- 
ber his words when trying to tell them of his happiness. A few months 
passed by, and Mary Ogle had not only 'almost,' but fully discovered 
that Shining Shore." 

Other Evangelists, about thirty : five in number, were 
here, most of them for a protracted meeting or two, 
others only on a transient visit. It would be exceed- 



202 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

ingly interesting, at least locally, to give them all equal 
notice with the foregoing ; but so many other things 
await attention that room can be found for only the 
briefest mention, however much more most of them 
deserve. 

First, then, there was John Thomas, who has hith- 
erto been overlooked. He came here from the South, 
in the neighborhood of 1840, riding a hobby not well 
adapted to these mountains. And David S. Burnet was 
here as early as thirty-four or thirty-five. Robert Milli- 
gan came in 1842. W. J. Pettigrew, from the Baptists, 
first preached here on Friday before the dedication in 
1844, and again in 1850, coming from Richmond, Vir- 
ginia. W. F. Pool held a meeting in 1845. Perhaps 
about that time Apollos Phinney labored at various 
points in this county. J. Harrison Jones, of Ohio, also 
did some preaching about that time. Robert Graham 
was here a day or two in 1847. About that time 
Moses E. Lard spent a summer's college vacation here. 
E. Davis came in 1849. At the convention of 1850, 
among others were Samuel Church, of Allegheny; E. E. 
Orvis, from northeastern Pennsylvania, and James Challen, 
of Philadelphia. The latter also held a meeting in 1854 
and solicited subscribers to his Ladies' Magazine. In 
April, 1852, Isaac Errett preached here and in Berlin, 
at which time, in the latter place, Miss Belle Kimmell 
and Lib. Glessner were baptized by C. L. Loos. In 
June, 1853, B. F. Perkey, from Butler county, Ohio, 
lectured on Spiritualism. From June 10 to 20, 1859, 
Robert Moffett had 23 additions here. IV. A. Beldings 
meeting began June <j K 1861, and, notwithstanding that 
recruiting was going on for the civil war, he enlisted 
sixteen souls under the banner of the King. In Sep- 



EVANGELISTS. 203 

tember, 1862, a visit from Prof. C. L. Loos, who for- 
merly had been pastor here, resulted in three additions. 
Thomas C. McKeever, in August, 1863 and 1864, held 
meetings with some success. Alanson Wilcox was with 
McKeever in the first meeting, and also here several 
times by himself in 1864. L. B. Hyatt began a meeting 
in January, 1864. In May of the same year Benjamin 
Franklin held a two weeks' meeting with three addi- 
tions. Some time during the civil wary. D. Benedict, 
of Tonawanda, New York, was here, and again on 
July 3-6, 1873. During the pastorate of James Darsie 
meetings were held, in October, 1866, by J. B. Johnson 
with twenty-five additions; by J. IV. Allen, in 1867, 
with twenty-nine additions, and by David M. Kinter, 
from February 21 to March 1, 1869, with the number 
of additions not remembered. The last three evangel- 
ists were pastors at Johnstown at the time, and the first 
two of the three were school-mates of the writer at 
Eureka College, Illinois. In 1871 and after, M. L. 
Streator as State Evangelist visited Somerset a number 
of times. About the middle of the seventies, R. T. 
Davis, of Allegheny, attended a general meeting at 
Somerset, and remained to do some preaching in the 
county. From May 25 to June 5, 1879, Ephraim Doo- 
liitle, of West Virginia, preached with eight additions. 
William Baxter, famed for success, held forth from Oc- 
tober I to 14, 1879, w i tn no additions. W. L. Hay den 
and Neal S. McCallum have each preached occasional 
sermons within the past three or four years. A. P. 
Cobb, then of Covington, Kentucky, held two very 
successful meetings ; the first, with fifty-six additions, 
began March 10, 1885, and the second, with forty ad- 
ditions, began on the same date and month of 1886. 



20-4- TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

In this summary, pastorates, whether short or long, 
are designedly omitted ; and, no doubt, others have 
been forgotten who richly deserve mention. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

PREACHERS FROM SOMERSET. 

The men who from the Somerset Church or through 
its indirect influence started in the ministry, or at least 
here were born into eminent usefulness, are not so 
numerous as the prominence of this church might sug- 
gest. For this there are obvious reasons. In its begin- 
ning it was exclusively a church of women ; and to this 
day women have predominated in the membership, not- 
withstanding a number of very prominent men have 
been members here. At present, however, the percent- 
age of the male membership is greater than at any pre- 
vious period of the church's history. Except where 
infant baptism takes the place of conversion, it seems 
to be everywhere true that that sex which is most 
largely represented in jails and penitentiaries is least 
represented on church rolls. 

Chauncey Forward, who is sketched in Chapter VII. , 
stands first in time and first in talent among all who 
from here have devoted themselves to the proclamation 
of the grace of God. 

J. W. Lanphear, mentioned in Chapter XV., regards 
the Somerset Church as his mother in the ministry. 



-206 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

Charles Lav an, noticed under Evangelists, may also 
be considered as belonging to Somerset, since Mary 
Morrison and Chauncey Forward drew him into Dis- 
ciple ranks. 

L. R. Norton will be treated of among the pastors, 
and the extent of Somerset's claim shown. 

Edward Bevins was described in the last chapter as 
preaching some at Stoystown, but as making the real 
beginning of his evangelistic career here. 

J. Z. Taylor was born near Bakersville, eight miles 
west of Somerset, November 6, 1830. He came to 
Somerset in September, 1853, at the beginning of Prof. 
C. L. Loos' Collegiate Institute, and left for Bethany 
College in the fall of 1856. During the vacation of 
1857 he returned and began evangelizing. The memory 
of his work then done is still green in living monu- 
ments. In this place he married Miss Mary Stuart, 
sister to Mrs. H. F. Schell. Mary Stuart was named 
after Mary Morrison, one of the blessed three to whom 
the initial labors recounted in this Tale are due. As 
Mary Morrison died April 20, 185 1 (see Mill. Harb. of 
that year, p. 358), and Mary Graft wished to have 
Mary Stuart realize the scriptural honorableness of the 
name Mary, she wrote her a large four-page letter on 
the subject, bearing date September 25, 1855. It is 
exceptionally well written, and would have been given 
in full had it come earlier to hand. 

Bro. Taylor's desire for the ministry is at least in 
part due to Mary Graft, as appears, among other inter- 
esting things, in the following extract from Sister Tay- 
lor's recent letter : 

" Mary Graft was the only woman I have known who deserves the 



PREACHERS FROM SOMERSET. 20J 

name of evangelist. The chief good she did was in going out after 
souls; and for that she will have stars in her crown. 

" When she heard that I was going to marry Mr. Taylor, she said 
to me : ' Honey, when he was a little boy and I used to go to his 
mother's house to expound the Word, he stood at my knees and list- 
ened.' She firmly believed that the impressions he received then had 
led to his entering the ministry. 

" As illustrative of her brave and energetic spirit, manifested in 
the work that had to be done then by ' those women,' my mother told 
me the following : One day she had to pass the tavern kept by Capt. 
W T ebster, to whom you allude in one of your early chapters. When 
she came in sight, he turned to his associates, standing or sitting around, 
and said, ' There comes Capt. Graft with her candlestick in her pocket.' 
He was right. She was on her way to light up the court-house for re- 
ligious services. 

" The last time I was in her house she told me that in her Bible 
readings she never allowed herself to pick out a chapter here and there, 
for in that way there would always be some portion of the Word over- 
looked. She urged me to adopt her rule and read the Scriptures regu- 
larly through." 

Bro. Taylor now lives in Kansas City, Missouri. It 
is needless to say anything of his present labor and 
standing in the brotherhood, which, like that of Paul 
through the Corinthians, is ' ' known and read of all 
men." 

George Lobingier and Frank B. Lobingier are grand- 
sons of Judge Lobingier, and brothers of Jacob Lobin- 
gier, Jr. , who lives at the old homestead at Laurel ville, 
Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, close to the line 
of Fayette county, three miles east of Mt. Pleasant 
and twenty-five miles west of Somerset. There was 
either never a church there, or at least no strong one. 
The men who preached at Somerset, or evangelized 
Somerset county, occasionally also preached there. 
Thus the two grandsons of the Judge fall to Somerset. 
George Lobingier is also related to Somerset by mar- 



208 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

riage, having taken Miss Ada Stuart, sister of Mrs. 
Taylor, to wife. He writes from his present home, 
Hebron, Nebraska, on January 16, 1886, thus: 

11 Somerset was called * The Mother of Churches.' It was a mis- 
sionary society as well as a church. I remember Mary Graft (in her 
second childhood), and ' the other Mary ' — Ogle — but did not know 
Mary Morrison. I can not say that I preached under the 'influence' of 
that church, and yet the grand lives of Henry F. Schell and Jacob 
Schell, and Ed. Bevins and others, may have assisted me. My preach- 
ing commenced more than eighteen, nearly nineteen, years ago. 

" My brother, F. B. Lobingier, preached frequently at Somerset. 
He was pastor of Paca Street, Baltimore, Church, Maryland, and labored 
as an evangelist in Maryland and in Pennsylvania. He died, in 1857, 
in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. 

" I am glad the 'decline' incident to so many churches once 
strong, has not overtaken the Somerset church. ' 

Henry Schell Lobingier, who graduated at Bethany, 
and was first stationed in Morrisania, a suburb of New 
York City, is a son of Jacob Lobingier, Jr. His mother 
was Lillie Stuart, daughter of Andrew and Susan 
Stuart, of Somerset, and sister to Mrs. Henry F. Schell. 
He came from Philadelphia, and preached at Somerset 
August 24th and 31st, 1879, having several additions 
at the latter date. He is, therefore, bound to Somerset 
by a fourfold tie — his name, his mother, his visits, and 
the place of his origin. 

William H. Schell, now of Washington City, is 
brother to the Somerset Schells, and, of course, was 
reared here. His desire to preach he traces to Mary 
Ogle. He writes : 

" When quite young, I was accustomed to pay frequent visits to 
Mary Ogle, a dear old mother in Israel. She secured a warm place in 
my heart by supplying me bountifully with sheep-nose apples, and I, in 
grateful appreciation, did service at the wood-pile. She always insisted 
that I was to become a preacher when I grew up. I never forgot her 



PREACHERS FROM SOMERSET. 20Q 

words, but as I approached manhood I concluded they would never be 
realized. In the summer of 1864 I had concluded to go into the sheep 
business with my brother Charles in Illinois, but upon visiting Somer- 
set my brother Jack said to me that my brothers would like to have me 
become a preacher." 

Upon his consenting to this, his brothers furnished 
him the means and he matriculated at Bethany College 
that fall. At the invitation of Bro. Wells, whose 
daughter Charles Schell married, he preached his first 
sermon the following year at a school-house between 
Bethany and Wellsburg. He describes the affair thus : 

"The school-house was pretty well filled, the weather cool, the 
stove-pipe gone, and the windows sadly in need of repair. I had care- 
fully written in full a sermon on the Christian Warfare. I have never 
written another in full. I had it pretty well committed. I opened in 
due form and began to speak. The weather grew colder as I continued, 
the audience began to grow uneasy and individuals to shiver. /, how- 
ever, was warm enough. Having the address written, I did not know 
how to quit until I had gone over the ground. It was decidedly hard 
on the congregation, but it satisfied me that I could preach, at least 
after a fashion." 

His further course he describes thus : 

" During my college course I preached in the vicinity of Bethany 
frequently, and was, for a time, regularly employed to preach for the 
Dutch Fork Church one-fourth of my time. Through the kind efforts 
of Bro. James Darsie I was called to work for the brethren at Ebens- 
burg, Pennsylvania, immediately after my graduation, in 1868." 

So far as the writer knows, July 20th and 27th, 
1879, were the last times he preached in Somerset. 

It may not be just the fair thing for Somerset to 
claim the Darsie Brothers, John, George and Lloyd ; but 
as Somerset is not particularly ashamed of them ; and 
they need a home somewhere, we will just take them 
in. A young lady being once asked where she was 



2IO TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

born, answered, "Nowhere;" then explained, "lam 
a minister's daughter." Let Somerset, then, be the 
ministerial birth-place of these good brethren. James 
Darsie was pastor here when his two older preaching 
sons finished up their college days and began their 
public career. How far in other respects the claim of 
Somerset may go, the following will serve to show : 

" Frankfort, Ky., January n, 1886. 
"Dear Bro. Vogel : — I was never at Somerset save to visit my 
father while he was preaching there. I spent a good part of several 
college vacations there, and preached twice for the church among my 
earliest efforts. About the same can be said of my brother, John L. 
We both graduated at Bethany, June, 1868, and began to preach regu- 
larly the succeeding fall. John's first charge was the church at Pleasant 
Valley, Pennsylvania, which he had in connection with the academy 
there. I began at Baltimore, Maryland, October 1st, and supplied for 
Bro. A. N. Gilbert till March following. Thence, April, 1869, I went 
to Tuscola, Illinois, for two years. My brother Lloyd was a small boy 
at Somerset when my father lived there. He began preaching at Au- 
burn, New York, something over two years ago. 
" Yours fraternally, 

" George Darsie." 

John J. Cramer, born July 22, i860, near New 
Lexington, Somerset county, Pennsylvania, son of 
Samuel J. and Rosie Knight Cramer, went from this 
county to the Bible Department of Kentucky Univers- 
ity in 1880, where he spent two sessions. On a visit 
home in June after these sessions, he preached several 
times at New Centerville. Then he went to Antioch, 
Lake county, Illinois. After serving that church two 
years, he labored four months at Mt. Sterling, Brown 
county, Illinois. For the last two years he has preached 
at Denver, Hancock county, Illinois, where, on De- 
cember 28, 1886, he approved God's judgment on the 



PREACHERS FROM SOMERSET. 2 I I 

loneliness of Adam and united his fortunes with those 
of Sister Hannah E. Fleming, 

Milton J. Pntts is twenty-nine years old, and was 
born five miles east of Somerset. He has some ac- 
quaintance with the classic tongues, and was admitted 
to the Somerset bar August 23, 1881, but does only 
such legal business as falls in the line of his tellership 
in the Somerset Bank. He has served the church as 
deacon for several years, and was, on July 4, 1886, or- 
dained one of its elders. Several years ago he was 
licensed to preach, but has made no use of this privi- 
lege beyond occasionally visiting a neighboring church 
or taking turns with Elder Henry F. Schell in filling 
the home pulpit during the absence of the regular 
minister. He is, however, more than half inclined to 
give himself regularly to the work after he has provided 
himself with sufficient of this world's goods so as not 
to be at the mercy of the whims of churches. 

Three others are now in preparation at Butler Uni- 
versity : Stuart Schell, son of Henry F. Schell, is in 
his nineteenth year. He has not fully decided to enter 
the ministry, but all signs point that way. He was 
immersed by the writer on March 14, 1885, during A. 
P. Cobb's first meeting here. The other two are from 
Berlin, their native town, but both belonged to Somer- 
set before the Berlin organization. They are brothers. 
Both were sprinkled in infancy, and they have a brother 
in the Lutheran ministry. Mark Collins is twenty-six 
years old, and has considerable experience in the mer- 
cantile business. He was baptized by L. F. Bittle, 
June 4, 1876. Robert Collins is twenty-one years old, 
a marble-cutter by trade, and was immersed by the 



212 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

writer on October 20, 1883. All three are superior 
young men, and will be heard from. 

There are still others in the Somerset Church who 
would make good preachers, but it is too soon to speak 
of them by name. 






CHAPTER XVIII. 



OTHER CHURCHES. 



In the body of the chapter on Chauncey Forward, 
and in foot-notes to the chapters on Evangelists, a 
number of churches, among which Somerset is the 
central figure, have been briefly mentioned. It is but 
common justice that the remaining churches within the 
same district of country should receive like notice, 
though not all of these are directly related to Somerset. 
The district referred to is that which constitutes the 
Second District in the present division of the State for 
purposes of cooperation, and embraces the counties of 
Somerset, Cambria, Westmoreland and Indiana. To 
begin, then, with the remaining Somerset county 
churches, we come first to — 

Petersburg, in Addison township, which lies in the 
southwest corner of the county. The post-office is 
Addison. The origin and present conduct of this church 
is due to Elder Hiram A. Hartzell, whose sister Susan 
is married to t'he Hon. A. J. Colborn,* residing at 



*The records of the Jersey Baptist Church state that William Wood began a 
three weeks' protracted meeting there on May 27, 1843, an d that on July 25th fol- 
lowing, Jackson Colborn, with others, was received into fellowship. 



214 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

Somerset, and who, with his wife, is a member of the 
Somerset church. He is also a relative of the Jonas 
Hartzell who figured so extensively in the early history 
of the Western Reserve, in northeastern Ohio, and a 
few years since died in Davenport, Iowa. 

Hiram A. Hartzell, a dentist by profession, was 
born in Stoystown, February 28, 181 5 ; went to Con- 
nellsville in 1832; was there immersed into the Baptist 
faith by Elder Ambrose B. Allen ; went to Berlin in 
October of the same year and put his membership into 
the Jersey Church, it being the nearest Regular Bap- 
tist organization. Three years later he moved to Ad- 
dison, where he married and has since buried his wife. 
The records of the Jersey Church show that he received 
a letter of travel on July 7, 1838, and that he was 
licensed, May 15, 1841, to preach three months before 
the Jersey Church, Indian Creek and Little Crossing. 
Later he was regularly ordained and did service here 
and there. A debate (to be noticed in the next chap- 
ter) between John Thomas, a Baptist, and Dr. P. G. 
Young, about the year 1836, put the problem of bap- 
tism for the remission of sins in such a light that 
thenceforward it troubled Elder Hartzell. One circum- 
stance after another intensified his unrest. Elders 
Whitehead, from Morgantown, now West Virginia, 
and Isaac Wynd, from Uniontown, Pennsylvania, held 
a meeting for the Jersey Church in the latter part 
of the forties, and baptized seven persons where 
Ursina now stands. Then they, came to Elder Hart- 
zell's for the purpose of talking to his sister Venie, 
who showed inclinations towards the Disciples. To her 
it seemed that baptism was not because of but for the 
the remission of sins ; and this was the matter which 



OTHER CHURCHES. 21 5 

these men came to settle. In the hope of getting re- 
lief from his own doubts, Elder Hartzell espoused his 
sister's cause and planted himself on the Disciple con- 
struction of Acts ii. 38. He called attention to the 
fact that precisely the same phraseology is used with 
reference to the blood of Christ (Matt. xxvi. 28) ; that 
Paul says we were "baptized into Christ " (Rom. vi. 
3) ; and that the falling of the scales from Saul's eyes, 
on which these men rested as proof of "conversion," 
did not obviate the necessity of his having to be bap- 
tized to "wash away his sins " (Acts xxii. 16), and was, 
therefore, merely a removal of physical blindness. In- 
stead of removing his doubts, these men finally left, 
declaring that " Hartzell had turned Campbellite." 

Shortly after this they sent John Thomas, from be- 
yond Uniontown, as by fame more skilled in the treat- 
ment of such " heresy." He arrived late in the day, 
and at once addressed himself to his purpose. The 
interesting dialogue grew so animated that it lasted all 
night and into the next day. Thomas then quit the 
field, declaring that Hartzell had irredeemably gone 
"Campbellite." Hartzell, however, had no special 
fondness for the people so nick-named, but, having 
found himself able to maintain the doctrine of ' ' bap- 
tism for the remission of sins " against the best coiners, 
as an honest man he had no choice left but to preach 
it. Elder Sammons, who had come from the Seventh- 
day Baptists into the Regular fold, told Hartzell that 
no other man in the Baptist ranks would be allowed to 
so preach.* Hartzell answered, "I am anxious to be 

*Such men, however, as Dr. Hackett, the commentator; T. J. Conant, the 
translator, and sundry other prominent Baptist ministers and professors, unhesita- 
tingly teach baptism in order to the remission of sins. It i« probably only a 
question of time about all Bap ists coming over to the same views. 



2 I 6 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

called to account." But his day of reckoning never 
came. His new position, however, brought hirn into 
closer and closer sympathy with the Disciples, till, in 
1855, under the pastorate of Prof. C. L. Loos, he for- 
mally identified himself with the Somerset Church, and 
at once went to the Jersey Church to give them the 
reasons of his change in an hour's address. Prof. Loos 
said that he had been ripening for years, and that fruit 
falls when fully matured. 

As Dr. Hartzell still lived in Addison, he preached 
in the school-houses of Petersburg and Listonburg, 
making some headway. Other preachers came also 
occasionally to his help, notably James Darsie, till, in 

1878, Hartzell built a chapel in Petersburg, about 
30x50 feet, and costing about $1,200, which was dedi- 
cated by Joseph King, of Allegheny, on February 2, 

1879. On April 24, 1882, it was legally incorporated, 
the only Disciple house in the county, outside of the 
Somerset Church, that has taken this step. 

Among the preachers who have since held transient 
meetings there are D. L. Kincaid and Peter Vogel, 
while M. B. Ryan, Neal S. McCallum and Wesley 
Larimer have had regular appointments. Both church 
and Sunday-school have been fairly prosperous, though 
neighboring churches, recently organized, have consid- 
erably weakened both, till the church membership is 
now somewhere below fifty. 

The Mountain Church, or Coffin Rock, so called from 
a large stone in the exact shape of a coffin, is four miles 
northeast of Petersburg. Members of the Petersburg 
Church lived there without the means of regular at- 
tendance where they held their membership. So in 
1885 Elder Hartzell built them a chapel, about 22x36 



OTHER CHURCHES. 217 

feet, at a cost of about $600, which was dedicated by 
Wesley Larimer on September 12, 1885. There are 
now about fifteen members there, and under the lead- 
ership of Dr. Hartzell they have a regular Sunday- 
school and occasional preaching. 

Confluence derives its name from the junction of the 
Castleman and Youghiogheny Rivers and Laurel Creek, 
hence also the township name of Turkeyfoot. It is a 
village on the Pittsburgh Division of the Baltimore and 
Ohio Railroad. It had occasional, transient preaching 
by various persons, as by Prof. Woolery while living at 
Somerset, who also held a debate there, but no attempt 
was made at organization till January, 1884. Then 
twenty-three persons were banded together, with Dr. 
W. S. Mountain, Louis Grossman and William Daily 
(the latter now moved away) as elders, and W. C. 
Dodds and D. Simmons as deacons. Part of the mem- 
bership live at Ursina, and some were drawn from the 
Petersburg Church. A chapel, worth about $700, and 
in size 24x40 feet, was bought in November, 1883. The 
Sunday-school, under the superintendency of Dr. Moun- 
tain, numbers about fifty-six scholars. They depend 
mostly on transient preaching, but meet regularly for 
Sunday-school and breaking the loaf. The present 
membership is somewhat larger than at the beginning, 
having been increased in meetings held by W. H. Wil- 
liams, Wesley Larimer, and others. 

Berlin, at the terminus of a branch of the B. & O. 
R. R., has received much and early attention by Som 
erset, through every preacher who has been located at 
the latter place for any considerable time, and through 
many of the visiting evangelists, but all with little re- 
sult until recently. The chief reason of this is found 



2l8 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

in the fact that its Germanic population is thoroughly 
wedded to tradition, and in that other fact before al- 
luded to, namely, that the village pays an annual 
ground rent of a Spanish milled dollar on every lot to 
the Lutheran and Reformed churches, and that these 
churches have besides a money endowment, by bequest, 
for their Sunday-schools. Somehow, people love to go 
where there is money. They may not be conscious of 
its influence, and yet they are influenced. 

On October 15 to November 5, 1883, Neal S. Mc- 
Callum and Peter Vogel laid joint siege to this place, the 
latter doing all of the German preaching and half of the 
English. Though Bro. McCallum is one of the few native 
Scotchmen who speaks good German, and began his 
ministry in German, he was kind enough not to wrestle 
with that tongue at Berlin. Including a few that were 
shortly after added by the same ministry, the meeting 
resulted in some twenty additions. These, with twenty 
others borrowed from Somerset, were the following 
April constituted into a church, with N. S. McCallum 
and Abraham Musser as elders, and Daniel A. Brubaker 
and John Foust as deacons. McCallum located with 
them, giving them one-fourth of his time till March 1, 
1886, when he moved to Edinburg, Indiana. As Musser 
has also moved away, Daniel A. Brubaker is acting 
elder and Sunday-school superintendent. On January 
15, 1885, they appointed a building committee, and on 
August 9th following, an extra nice chapel for $1,800 
was dedicated by W. H. Williams. Since McCallum's 
removal they have had only transient preaching by C. 
S. Long, M. B. Ryan and Peter Vogel, the latter 
holding them a brief meeting in October, 1886, with 
two additions. Arrangements are begun looking to 



OTHER CHURCHES. 210, 

the employment of an evangelist by the several minor ■ 
churches of the county. 

Meyersdale, on the Pittsburg Division of the B. & 
O. R. R., is about equal in size to Somerset. In the 
latter part of August, 1885, McCallum and Vogel held 
a joint meeting there of about two weeks. There were 
no additions, but some fifteen Disciples found there 
pledged themselves to go into an organization at an op- 
portune time in the near future. In the fore part of 
August, 1886, the number of members was increased 
to twenty-four, and on the 15th of that month a partial 
organization was affected. S. B. Teagarden is now 
holding them a meeting there, having begun on Janu- 
ary 27, 1887. 

Bolivar, on the Pennsylvania Central Railroad, is the 
only place in Westmoreland county, besides Langlins- 
town, that has a church of Disciple. Save Cookport, it 
is the only place in the Second Pennsylvania District 
which the writer has not personally visited, and that 
for the reason that every communication addressed to 
the elders has failed to elicit an answer. They have, 
however, a chapel and an organization and believe in 
edifying themselves. The Lord bless them. 

The churches in Indiana county were visited by the 
writer, as Evangelist of the Second District, in August, 
1884, in the following order : 

Homer is quite a village, situated on a branch of the 
'Pennsylvania Railroad. The cause was started there 
about 1867, by D. M. Kinter, whose native place is a 
few miles north of Indiana, the county-seat. He gath- 
ered in six souls, and the number was in time increased 
to thirty, but now there are only sixteen. Amos Hut- 
ton, who has gone back to the Baptists, did them much 



220 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

harm by his life and ministry. Transient preaching has 

been done by Davis, M. L. Streator when State 

Evangelist, Wm. Lloyd and Carroll Ghent. Neal S. 
McCallum served them regularly a part of his time for 
three years, and resided there one year — in 1880. They 
meet in a school-house, and have Sunday-school on al- 
ternate Lord's days. E. P. Hill is elder, and J. R. 
Buterbaugh and Hiram Layton deacons. 

Sample Run (On berg P. O.) is seven miles east of 
Indiana and eight miles north of west from Pine Flat. 
The church was started somewhere near 1840, and now 
numbers about forty members. Part of the time they 
have been served by the ministers who cared for Pine 
Flat, and the rest of the time they have depended on 
transient preaching and self edification. Until 1886 
they met in a country school-house, but have now 
built a chapel near said school-house. J. M. Wins- 
heimer is elder, and Samuel Barnett deacon. 

Pine Flat is a small village about fourteen miles east 
of Indiana. The church was organized, January 2, 
1856, by James B. Pyatt and James Darsie, with seven 
members, and has now about eighty. Their chapel was 
built in 1858, and is now worth about $1,200. Their 
pastors have been J B. Pyatt, George Lobingier, D. 
M. Kinter, Amos Hutton, William Griggsby, Neal S. 
McCallum, M. H. Tipton, H. C. Cooper and Dr. 
Beaulieu. Transient preachers have been Festus Tib- 
bott, Benj. Davis, L. R. Norton, Andrew Burns, Ben- 
jamin Franklin (who held a debate there), Alanson 
Wilcox, M. L. Streator, S. P. Miller, John Ellis, W. 
L. Hayden and Peter Vogel. Mrs. Mary B. Williams 
is Sunday-school superintendent. The elders are John 



OTHER CHURCHES. 221 

W. Williams and P. J. Arthur, and the deacons are 
Stephen Griffith and T. P. Stevens. 

Smithport (Horton P. O.) is a hamlet some fourteen 
miles north of Pine Flat. The church was founded, 
November 10, 1867, by D. M. Kinter, with seven 
members. It has now about fifty-five. In 1869 the 
M. E. Church built a house, 35x50 feet, costing $2,200, 
which was bought by the Disciples for $600 in March, 
1883. The church had transient preaching by D. M. 

Kinter, ■ Evans, J. F. Rowe, M. L. Streator, 

William Lloyd, Peter Vogel, H. C. Cooper, Dr. Beau- 
lieu, and others. Amos Hutton lived there one year, 
and M. H. Tipton served the church irregularly for one 
year. Their Sunday-school has about sixty-five schol- 
ars. Fred Weitzel is elder. 

Cookp07't, four miles north of Pine Flat, also a rural 
village, had a church organized there by Dr. Beaulieu, 
in March, 1886, with thirty-two members. They have 
since increased their numbers and built a meeting- 
house. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



CONTROVERSY. 



Every new movement by conscientious men has the 
presumption of truth in its favor. It may, indeed, be 
only a mutually admitted tradition to which new or re- 
newed importance is given, but usually it is a lost or 
neglected truth that is sought to be rescued. In pro- 
portion as that truth is vital or fundamental will the 
new movement have strength, especially if in intelli- 
gent hands. Men's lack of omniscience makes them 
liable to take but partial views of broad questions, and 
fallibility often renders their views erroneous. Such 
errors are all the more deep-seated when, by long-con- 
tinued habit, they have been so interpreted into favor- 
ite texts that to call such interpretation in question 
seems an assailment of the very word of God. New 
or renewed truth, is, therefore, only born into vigor 
amid the throes of debate. And the form of discus- 
sion depends on the age, the country, and the indi- 
vidual: where might makes right, persecution is divine; 
but where physical force is at a discount, arguments 
are the resort, till experience teaches error its weakness 
and compels either a surrender or a refusal to further 



CONTROVERSY. 223 

enter the lists, according as sincerity or policy is 
strongest. 

Thus it happened in these regions. The Disciples 
were at first the challenged party, while now they may 
freely challenge, with none to accept. 

The initial emphasis, however, which always be- 
longs to the ousting of error and the re-introduction of 
truth, closes the eyes of opponents to every virtue, 
and causes the echo of slanderous battle to live long 
after the warfare has ceased. Such echoes still ring 
in these mountains. 

Before entering fully upon the chief purpose in this 
chapter, a few promiscuous incidents may serve to show 
the tension of the public pulse and the quality of some 
of the strata in which we are to work. 

In an early spring, down in the twenties, the 
Lutheran meeting-house burnt down without any cer- 
tain knowledge as to how it came about. The fire was 
first seen at three o'clock in the morning. The day 
before had been a high-day of merry-making in Somer- 
set. The rural population was largely represented. 
Foot-races, quoit-pitching, wrestling-matches, some 
fisticuffs, and plenty of whiskey-drinking, was the order 
of the day, and a large share of it took place near the 
house in question. A burning cigar-stub thrown 
behind the open steps late in the evening, or the at- 
tempt of some belated sot to light his pipe for the 
home-journey, would account for it all. Lutherans, 
however, accused Mary Ogle of incendiarism. The 
Rev. C. F. Heyer, who was their pastor from 1825 to 
1828 and afterwards missionary to Asia, wrote to 
a brother minister substantially the same thing and 
complained that in consequence he had to quit his 



224 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

charge. The following Sunday the Lutherans assem- 
bled on the ashes to hold a meeting denunciatory of 
the Baptists. A storm drove them away. After its 
abatement they re-assembled for the same purpose, but 
again the elements compelled their leaving. By this 
omen the better-disposed part concluded that they were 
mistaken, while the rest held their surmisings firm. 

A German who went by the name of Philip was 
working for Jacob Schneider, the father of Aunt Char- 
lotte, in 1842 or '3. The farm-house stands a distance 
east of Somerset, where the Koontzes now live. See- 
ing a crowd gather at the stream between the house 
and town, Philip inquired of Mr. Schneider as to the 
purpose of the assemblage. On being told that a man 
was to be baptized, he asked, " How came he to be so 
old without baptism?" The answer not being satis- 
factory, he next inquired of Aunt Charlotte, who hap- 
pened to be at her father's, and she replied that the 
Bible taught only believers' immersion — nur Taufe dev 
Glaubenden. "I grant you," he answered, "that, if 
you go by the Bible, you have to do so ; but who goes 
by that now-a-days? We must listen to the church."* 
He afterwards got his Bible to show that he was not 
ignorant of its contents, but spoke from fuller informa- 
tion. 



*What the phrase "the church" means in such connection has never yet 
been satisfactorily denned. Among the Romanists, where the phrase originated, 
it was variously held to be " the consent of the leaders," " the general council," 
"the ecumenical council and the Pope," "the Pope." In the council of 1870 it 
was finally fixed, at the expense of a split, that in matters of doctrine and morals 
the Pope alone is impeccable and infallible, and his deliverances are irreformable ! 
But what business a professed Protestant has with such a phrase, in such a con- 
nection, does not appear from Scripture; for there the expression, if unlimited, al- 
ways signifies all the disciples of the Lord Jesus ; and, if limited, all the believers 
of a given locality. So " to listen to the church " signifies " to obey one's, self!" 
" to dictate terms to the Almighty !" 



CONTROVERSY. 225 

Mill Run is in Fayette county, twelve miles east of 
Connellsville, at the foot of the Laurel Hills. There a 
union church was built by citizens of all and no denomi- 
nations. The Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians 
had used it at will. About 1835, a Disciple preacher 
came along that way and desired to use it also. The 
liberal-minded portion of the community wished to 
hear him, but the rest arrayed themselves against it. 
An attempt to use the house found it closed and 
guarded. This led to quarrels and removals from the 
community. Meetings of all kinds were discontinued, 
and John Bingham, without protest, occupied the 
house as a shop for the manufacture of whiskey-barrels 
and the storage of such whiskey as he took in trade for 
his wares, till the building rotted down ! 

In the southern part of Somerset county, in the 
early spring of 1836 or possibly '37, John Thomas, the 
Baptist minister before mentioned, a red-haired Welsh- 
man with decided brogue, who " lummed" instead of 
" loved," and who was a half-brother to the venerable 
Dr. William Shadrach, took umbrage at some alleged 
Harbinger expression of Alexander Campbell as heresy 
needing to be crushed. As near as can be recollected 
the matter alleged had this substance : The blood of 
Christ, abstractly considered, does not avail for the re- 
moval of personal trangression ; but in the concrete 
form of specific obedience, as the baptism of a peni- 
tent believer, it cleanses from sin. This led to a chal- 
lenge to discuss the design of baptism, which Dr. P. 
G. Young accepted. At a set time the parties met in 
Paddytown, some four miles north of Ursina, to hold 
their debate in the Bethel meeting-house, which was 
under the control of the Methodists. Henry L. Hoi- 



226 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

brook, a farmer, surveyor, and courter of law, was one 
of the moderators ; the Methodist minister, Turner by 
name, was another ; and the third man's name is for- 
gotten. There were to be three sessions a day — morn- 

o 

ing, afternoon, and evening. It is needless here to go 
over the several arguments as far as recollected. Suf- 
fice it to say that the chief reliance of Elder Thomas 
was I. John i. 7 : ''The blood of Jesus Christ his Son 
cleanseth us from all sin." Dr. Young stood erect 
with hand resting on staff and called attention to the 
fact that (1) this passage is not predicated of aliens 
seeking an interest in Christ, but of "us " who " walk 
in the light " and " have fellowship one with another ;" 
that (2) it does not say, the blood of Christ "alone " 
or "abstractly;" but (3) it is a "concrete" offer 
through the ' ' specific obedience " "if we confess our 
sins" and "walk in the light." Jonas Younkin had 
demanded of Elder Thomas the particular year and 
number of the Harbinger in which he claimed to have 
found his wording of Campbell's language. At a suit- 
able juncture William Scott, a teacher, was called on to 
read the editorial publicly, but no such wording was 
found as Thomas had alleged. By this time the moral 
atmosphere was getting decidedly close. To add to 
other inconveniences, before the close of the afternoon 
session Chauncey Forward and Charles Ogle had ar- 
rived from Somerset with a formidable array of books. 
Before the night session the Methodists and Baptists, 
who had made common cause on this question and 
against the Disciples, had laid their heads together and 
decided on a course of action. In that conference the 
Methodist minister stated to Hiram A. Hartzell and 
other Baptists, that on some pretext or other the de- 



CONTROVERSY. 227 

bate would have to be stopped that night or the 
"Campbellites" would ruin both Baptists and Method- 
ists. Accordingly, at the close of the night session, 
Rev. Turner stated that the debate must end, since he, 
one of the moderators, had important business to attend 
to, which demanded his absence. Ogle replied that 
there were plenty of able men who could take his 
place, and that the move looked to him like a lame 
trick to run from a foe they could not face and to flee 
from truth to which they had not the manhood to sur- 
render. Turner answered that such language was un- 
becoming a consecrated house. Ogle rejoined, ' ' Where 
lies this ' consecration '? Is it in the plastering ? in the 
boards? in the shingles? or in that modern invention 
yonder, the ' mourners' bench ' ? And what has so 
' consecrated ' this house that truth dare not be here 
elicited, and that lame error must be here hidden by 
tricks and still steadfastly worshiped ?" Nevertheless 
the debate ended then and there — a fact which is of 
itself a verdict 

In the Somerset Herald for October 24, 1843, ap- 
peared the following : 

"Read This! — The undersigned propose to discuss the following 
questions with any two respectable members of the Church of Disci- 
ples, viz. : 

" First. Is immersion the mode, and the exclusive mode, of scrip- 
tural baptism? 

" Second. Is remission of sins the object, and the exclusive ob- 
ject, of water baptism ? 

" Third. Are adult believers the only proper subjects of Christian 
baptism ? 

" On all these subjects we will take the negative. 

" It is also expressly understood that the debaters on both sides are 
to be confined exclusively to the Holy Scriptures', the only legitimate 



228 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

source from which evidence can be drawn, in the investigation of purely 
scriptural principle. The debaters on both sides shall be allowed to 
appeal to the commonly received version of King James the I., which 
version has been received by most Protestant denominations of any note 
in the world, and which, we are willing to allow, is a sufficient rule of 
faith and practice. Reference can also be had to the original Greek 
and Hebrew Scriptures, and, if the affirmants desire it, the Latin Vul- 
gate may also be used. 

" We must also have four weeks' notice of the time and place of 
discussion. 

" M. P. Jimison, Perryopolis, Fayette Co., Pa., 

" Jno. L. Williams, Addison, Somerset Co., Pa." . 

" October 7, 1843." 

In the Somerset Herald for October 31, 1843, the 
editor, Jonathan Row, says : 

" . . . The communication of Messrs. Jimison and Williams, 
republished below, having, during our absence of a few weeks since, 
found its way into our paper, we deem it due to the challenged party 
that they be heard through the same channel. ..." 

After this the above challenge is added, with the 
following reply by the Somerset elders : 

" Somerset, October 30, 1843. 

" Mr. M. P. Jimison — Dear Sir: — We have seen a publication 
signed by you and John L. Williams, in the Somerset Herald of last 
week. You have thus compelled us, in justice to ourselves, to publish this 
reply. We do not, and never did, wish to get into a newspaper con. 
troversy with you or any other person. Your dragging us into .one by 
the publication of a challenge, without its being accompanied by our 
reply, is wholly indefensible ; especially when you knew our wishes on 
this subject and promised to comply with them. If the editor had been 
at home, his good sense would have defeated your object, and spared us 
this communication. 

" You will remember that when you and Mr. Williams were here 
on the 4th inst, he (Mr. W. ) stated, in your presence, to a large con- 
gregation, that ' you had come here in pursuance of a well defined ar- 
rangement,' by which the debate was then to go on. In fact and in 
truth, there was no arrangement at all, either as to questions, rules or 
time. We charge him with nothing worse than a mistake ; but it was 



CONTROVERSY. 229 

such a mistake, about a plain matter of fact, so easily corrected by ref- 
erence to his own handwriting, or by a small effort of even a bad mem- 
ory, that we do not choose to have any further correspondence with 
him, lest he might make some other mistake of the same kind. 

" Your publication, if considered by itself, would allow us to infer 
that you consider yourselves authorized to prescribe not only the rules, 
but also the questions— not only what we shall assert of the doctrine of 
our church, but also the kind of evidence by which you will conde- 
scend to let us prove it. We will not be forced to assert what we do 
not believe, nor to relinquish the use of evidence because it may suit 
the purposes of our opponents to exclude it from the public eye. Mr. 
Williams, in his letter of the 15th of September, says: 'As to rules, 
they will be agreed upon by competent persons whom we may select; 
I shall not dictate anything on the subject.' In the one addressed to 
you, on the 4th inst., you were told we would assent to this. We do 
not wish to suppose that you would shuffle out of your own proposition 
when you saw it would be accepted. We therefore take it for granted 
that the proposition as to questions and rules is to be modified, if we 
show that it ought to be. We can show that — hear us. 

" We object to your second question on the ground that we never 
assert that any of God's institutions have an ' exclusive object' unless 
his word says so. We have said that baptism is the test of our faith n 
Christ, through whose blood we have the remission of sins — a perpetual 
commemoration of his death, burial and resurrection, and the ordinance 
by which believers enter his church. 

" Perhaps in this we do not differ after all. Mr. Wesley and the 
Methodist Discipline teach that baptism is for the remission of sins 
quite as unequivocally as we do. If you believe the Discipline, you 
ought to agree with us, for the Discipline and the Bible coincide in this. 
The phrase ' water baptism ' is not found in the Scriptures, and we 
never use it. Without faith and repentance, ' water baptism ' (as you 
call it) is worse than useless, and sins are certainly not so remitted. We 
are willing to defend the doctrine as laid down by the Saviour in Mat- 
thew xxviii., and reiterated by Peter in Acts ii. 

"Your third question would also make us affirm what we do not 
believe, and never asserted. We never use the phrase ' adult believers ,' 
but teach that ' he that believeth ' is the scriptural subject of Christian 
baptism — age and size are circumstances of no importance if the sub- 
ject can understand and believe. 

" Now, as to rules, you say, ' It is expressly understood,' etc. With 
whom have you had this express understanding ? Certainly not with us. 



23O TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

Perhaps, however, you did not intend to say that the rules you lay down 
should be adopted in pursuance of an argument with us ; but your lan- 
guage might be taken as an assertion that you had a ' clear and well 
denned arrangement ' to that effect with us. To prevent misunder- 
standing, we here say that there is no such understanding or arrangement. 

" We do agree with you most cordially and unhesitatingly that 
the Scriptures are the only legitimate source of information on such a 
subject — the only rule of faith and practice. The doctrines and com- 
mandments of men weigh not with us even as ' the small dust of the 
balance.' If, therefore, we prove that the immersion of believers for 
the remission of sins was commanded by Christ and practiced by his 
apostles, and that sprinkling of non-believing infants, who have com- 
mitted no sins, is not commanded in the word of truth, but is a mere 
human invention, you will be beaten, of course. On the other hand, 
if you show that sprinkling is commanded in the Scriptures — that in- 
fants without sins, and incapable of believing or disbelieving, are 
proper subjects of baptism, you will be the victors. Then you will 
have achieved a triumph no other man or set of men have achieved, 
and which we think you are not destined to achieve. The only ques- 
tion between us, therefore, is this ; What do the Scriptures say on this 
subject? 

" But what shall be the mode of examining the Scriptures and of 
communicating the result to the public? Here we differ. We say that 
every word and phrase in the Bible has a clear, definite and unmistak- 
able meaning in the original language ; its great author has given ex- 
plicit and unequivocal directions for the guidance of his people. He 
has not trifled with his disciples, nor ' paltered with them in a double 
sense.' To suppose that he has, would be wholly inconsistent with our 
reverence for his infinitely wise and beneficent character. If the Scrip- 
tures, in the original, be free from ambiguity, they are capable of being 
translated with equal simplicity and plainness into any other language. 
There are and have been learning and honesty enough in the Christian 
world to translate the Bible faithfully and tttdy ; though we do not be- 
lieve every translation is a correct one. Whatever apparent ambiguity 
there may be in the Bible is not chargeable to its Author, but to the 
kingcraft and priestcraft that have dealt with it. It is absolutely nec- 
essary that we should have the Scriptures translated, that the people 
who may be present at the debate shall understand what is going on. 
You propose to confine the debaters to three versions of the Scriptures : 
the original Greek, the Latin Vulgate, and King James' translation. In 
this enumeration we throw out the Hebrew, for we do not expect to 



CONTROVERSY. 23 1 

hear anything more of that from you. We will now speak of them in 
their order. 

" ist. As to the Greek original. The debate is to be conducted 
before an audience who will understand no Greek. To quote the Greek 
Testament to them without any interpretation would be to speak to 
them in an unknown tongue. Says the Apostle Paul, I. Cor. xiv., 
' He who speaks in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men,' etc. 
4 If the trumpet give forth an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself 
to the battle ?' And, ' If I know not the meatiing of the voice, I shall 
be to him that speaketh a barbarian, and he shall be a barbarian unto 
me.' You can scarcely wish to appear before the people as a barbarian. 
Your best friends will not wish to see or hear you in that character. 

" 2d. The case is made no better by proposing to read from the 
Latin Vulgate, for the congregation will understand as little of Latin 
as of Greek. 

"3d. But you are willing to read from King James' translation — 
as we shall show, only so far as it suits you. You know, as well as we 
do, that the Greek word baptizo, on which the principal controversy 
must turn, is not translated at all in that version. King James, for 
political and kingly reasons, did not choose to have that word translated 
by its true meaning ' immerse,' and it could not be translated sprinkle. 
He, therefore, cunningly enough, caused his ' trumpet to give an un- 
certain sound ' by leaving it untranslated. By simply transferring the 
Greek word into the English text, he sent the Bible into the hands of 
the people, speaking on the subject in an unknown tongue. From the 
care you have exhibited to select only such versions as can not be under- 
stood by the audience, we are led to wonder whether truth can be your 
only object. It is only strange that you did not also permit us to use a 
Chinese version. We are aware of your intention to set yourselves up 
as translators. In your public attempts at argument on this subject, 
you have denied the fidelity of the king's version, especially when it 
speaks of the Saviour's being baptized in Jordan, of Philip's and the 
eunuch's going down into the water and coming up out of the water, etc., 
etc. You will, of course, do this again and give your own translation 
to words left by the king untranslated. This might be convenient to 
you, but you will pardon us for preferring evidence to assertion. It is 
unnecessary to have a debate merely for the purpose of hearing your 
opinions. We are not aware that you or Mr. Williams have any great 
reputation as Greek scholars. If your merit does not exceed your fame, 
the public might be in some danger of following guides who are imper- 
fectly acquainted with the road, and ' when the blind lead the blind 



232 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

both fall into the ditch.' Another very serious objection to this part of 
your proposition is, that if you should assert that the Greek word bap- 
tizo means sprinkle, and our debater that it means immerse, and neither 
side be permitted to produce evidence, the whole matter would become 
a mere question of veracity. It would be a personal wrangle, not a de- 
bate, and the friends of neither would be instructed or edified. 

" The current translations of the passages in disput >, by ail the 
wise, good and learned men of the Christian world, have made them 
plain upon tables, so that ' he who runs may read.' Luther, the great 
reformer, whose learning was only exceeded by his undaunted courage 
and spotless honesty ; Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian Church, 
and scores of other eminent men of that sort ; Wesley, whose whole 
life was one unreserved sacrifice to what he deemed the cause of true re- 
ligion ; Prof. Porson, the best Greek scholar of modern times; Dr. 
Wall, the great defender of ' infant baptism ;' William Penn, as wise as 
he was benevolent ; all these, and a thousand others whose impartiality 
no Paido-bapiist will doubt, whose honesty can not be impugned, and 
whose learning you will not pretend is inferior to any of the present 
day — all these have given their translations of the disputed passages, 
all of them have told us, not what they have thought, but what, as 
Greek scholars, they knew to be the true translation. We ask no evi- 
dence furnished by any « Baptist ' or modern Disciple, we rely solely 
upon the evidence of our opponents. You do not, by your challenge, 
even permit us to use the Greek grammar and dictionary. You deny to 
us the right of showing, by authentic history, that the whole Christian 
world for thirteen hundred years understood the command of the 
Saviour as we do, and that sprinkling healthy persons was first legalized 
by the Roman Catholic Council of Ravenna in 13 n. You wish to force 
your opinion upon the public as superior to translation, grammar, dic- 
tionary, history, everything. Such proposition is worse than absurd. 
A comparison and collection of passages, wherever they occur, with 
the help of the translation we propose to read, will show them to be 
right. The Bible will thus be made its own expositor, and will prove 
that you were not intended to sustain a cause which John Wesley and 
Martin Luther gave up as indefensible. 

" Do you really mean to say this kind of evidence is not good? Or 
only that you do not wish it adduced ? If you think the historical fact 
mentioned above, and the translation of all the good and wise men we 
have mentioned, are worth nothing at all, we would thank you to refer 
us to any rule of arithmetic by which we may calculate how much cess 
than theirs the unsupported opinions of M. P. Jimison and J. L. Wil- 



CONTROVERSY. 233 

Hams would be rated. We mean no disparagement to you ; your own 
modesty will readily suggest that you are not quite equal to them. 

" We think we can easily agree as to the questions. As to the 
rules, the dispute is, in short, just this: We must have a translation; 
you want to make it yourselves and exclude all others ; we will not let 
you do so, but are willing to take your translation together with the 
original, and all translations made by Paido-baptists. We will not 
agree to any rule that will debar us from the use of the Methodist 
Discipline. 

" This business has now run out to a length quite as unexpected as 
it is unpleasant to us. We have no desire, and never had, to get into 
controversy with members of the Methodist Church, unless we are sure 
that either we or they will be benefited by it. Many of them are much 
prejudiced against us now, and the cordial and sincere respect we enter- 
tain for them makes us anxious rather to remove than increase that 
prejudice. We trust you will do us Injustice to state that in this mat- 
ter we have throughout acted on the defensive. You publicly charged 
us with violating a ' clear and well defined arrangement.' After giving 
you notice of our intention, we showed before the same public tha; this 
charge was founded in gross mistake. You now publish a challenge in 
the newspapers; and, as we have no intention to suffer any further mis- 
takes to be made by you or the public, we have defined our position in 
the same paper. If you desire a fair and honorable debate, you caa 
have it ; but if you wish to suppress the truth by imposing rules, the 
effect of which would exclude that from the public mind, we will be no 
parties to such a transaction. 

" w. h. posthlethwaite, 
"Samuel Huston." 

To this lengthy self-explanatory letter, penned by 
the scholarly Posthlethwaite,* it is only necessary to 



* William H. Posthlethwaite was born August 8, 1805, in Greensburg, West- 
moreland county, Pennsylvania. He was the finest classical scholar of the Somer- 
set Bar, where he was admitted to practice December 26, 1826. lie also served two 
terms as Prothonotary, namely, from December, 1836, to November, 1842. He was 
one of the converts in Thomas Campbell's great meeting of 1829, and. served the 
church twenty-one years as elder. When the writer first knew him, he had long 
before resigned that office, but still took an active interest in church matters. An 
incident will show his tact. Two sisters in the church were not on speaking terms, 
and had been so for a considerable time — each too " proud " to speak first Before 
prayer-meeting, one evening in the summer of 1870, one of these sisters, Posthle- 
thwaite and the writer stood in a conversational group before the old Academy. 



234 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

add that afterwards an agreement was reached by which 
the debate was to proceed. The time, however, arrived 
and the court-house was filled with an eager public, 
only to be disappointed by the non-appearance of the 
Methodist disputants. When the still lingering doubt 
had changed to certainty, Judge Jeremiah S. Black 
arose, stated the case, read the entire correspondence, 
then made a ringing speech, and closed with the follow- 
ing quotation from Macbeth : 

" Hang out our banners on the outer wall, 

Our castle's strength 
Will laugh a siege to scorn. . 
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, 
And beat them backward home." 

On Tuesday, May 6, 1884, a Lutheran Conference 
assembled at Hooversville, and continued several days. 
Over the signature of J. M. S., the proceedings were 
afterwards officially published in all the county papers. 
In this report was found the following paragraph : 

"At2P. M., Thursday, Conference convened again, and the fol- 
lowing subjects were discussed in well prepared and able papers : 
' Proper Subjects of Baptism, by Rev. J. F. Kuhlman ; ' The Mode of 
Baptism,' by Rev. J. H. Zinn. It was conclusively shown that infants, 
as well as adult believers, are proper subjects of baptism, and that no 
particular mode is essential to the validity of the ordinance. This 
church question was thoroughly and impartially discussed, and the 
right of choice of Christian liberty fully allowed." 

Inasmuch as the county press is secular and unde- 



During that con\ ersation the other sister swept by, so devoutly heading for the 
prayer-meeting that she could not find it in her heart to salute by the way. Hardly 
had she passed when Bro. Posthlethwaite called her by name, and as she turned 
the two "proudies" stood facing. Instantly they received a mutual introduction, 
and, with a smile, shook hands. Neither had spoken "first," yet both were recon- 
ciled. On the 29th day of December, 1870, Mr. Posthlethwaite offered the first 
temperance resolution presented to any church in Somerset. During his eldership 
he also took delight in preaching to surrounding churches. He died July n, 1879. 



CONTROVERSY. 235 

nominational, belonging, therefore, as much to one relig- 
ious people as another, it seemed to the writer that this 
matter was of the nature of a challenge in your own 
home, and could not be allowed to go unnoticed with- 
out confession of weakness and fear. He, therefore, 
published the following in each of the Somerset papers : 

" In last week's Herald it is said of certain ' well prepared and able 
papers,' one by Rev. J. F. Kuhlman, on ' Proper Subjects of Baptism,' 
and the other by Rev. J. H. Zinn, on ' Mode of Baptism,' that ' it was 
conclusively shown that infants, as well as adult believers, are proper 
subjects of baptism, and that no particular mode is essential to the 
validity of the ordinance.' Having, in times past, paid considerable 
attention to both of these topics, and having never found any proof, 
much less 'conclusive proof,' of either proposition, the reverend gentle- 
men are hereby respectfully invited to publish those ' well prepared and 
able papers ' in the papers of our borough for review, or to read them 
in the Disciple pulpit of this place, with the privilege of reply. 

" Peter Vogel." 

Said papers, however, were neither published nor 
read as requested, though both men lived, and one 
still lives, less than ten miles from Somerset. Since 
then, at least Mr. Zinn has read his to various Lutheran 
congregations, as if it were unanswerable, and his 
people delight to hear it. 

" There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, 
But the end thereof are the ways of death." 



CHAPTER XX. 

SOUL-SLEEPING, FEET-WASHING, TRINE IMMERSION, ETC. 

In an earlier chapter it was stated that the hobby of 
Dr. John Thomas could make no headway among these 
mountains. Later on, however, the writings of a Mr. 
Storrs influenced a few good people of Somerset in 
favor of materialism, or soul-sleeping. To meet this 
state of things here, as well as to answer a call by the 
editor of the Christian Standard, made in view of a 
wider demand, the writer, then pastor at Somerset, 
wrote a series of six articles on "The Human Spirit 
and its Destiny," commencing with the issue of the 
Standard for July 22, 1871. In those articles the start- 
ing point was I. Thess. v. 23 : "And the God of peace 
himself sanctify you wholly ; and may your spirit and 
soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at 
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." The principal 
term, spirit, Greek pneuma, was shown to have, in all, 
six uses, namely: 

1. Wind, air in motion; breath (Job. iv. 9; Heb. 

;. 7 ). 

2. Disposition, temper (Luke ix. 55 ; Acts xviii. 

25). 

236 



SOUL-SLEEPING, TRINE IMMERSION, ETC. 2$J 

3. An influence from a person (Matt. xxii. 43 ; I. 
Cor. v. 4, 5). 

5. The import of a law (Rom. ii. 29; vii. 6; II. 
Cor. iii. 6). 

6. A being or entity. God (John iv. 24) ; The 
Holy Spirit (Matt. iii. 16) ; Angels (Heb. i. 14) ; evil 
spirits or demons (Matt. viii. 16; Mark viii. 16; Mark 
ix. 17-26); and lastly, the conscious entity of man (Job 
xxxiv. 14, 15; I. Cor. v. 5; II. Cor. ii. 11 ; II. Cor. 
xii. 1-5). 

It was shown that in the last four citations no other 
definition except the sixth could be applied. This 
point clearly established, step by step the advance was 
made to prove the human spirit still conscious after 
death of the body, and the spirits of the wicked sub_ 
ject to everlasting punishment. There is now no trace 
of soul-sleeping in Somerset. 

From two other sources have Somerset Disciples, 
as well as many others in Pennsylvania, been influ- 
enced. On one side this influence came from ''The 
Church of God," and on the other, from. "The Ger- 
man Baptists."* The former practice, feet-washing as 



* The Church of God was founded by John Winebrenner, at Harrisburg, 
Pennsylvania, October, 1830, and now numbers about 60,000 adherents. Its mem- 
bership is mostly in Pennsylvania, where the mourner's-bench system of revivals 
seems to find congenial soil. John Winebrenner was born in Frederick county, 
Maryland, Marches, 1797, and died at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, September 12, 
i860. He became minister to the German Reformed Church at Harrisburg, but 
rejecting Calvinism, adopting the mourner's-bench and believers' immersion, and 
feet-washing as an ordinance, he seceded and established a church of his own. 
" The congregation of this denomination are in part independent in church gov- 
ernment, but are united into 'elderships,' which are again joined into one 'general 
eldership,' which owns the church property." 

The German Baptists formally took this name in Annual Meeting, 1856, 
though originally they were known as the Brethren Church. By outsiders, and to 
some extent by themselves, they are variously called Dunkers, Dunkards, or 
Tunkers, from the German tunken, " to dip." Their founder, Alexander Mack, a 



238 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

an ordinance, and the latter, feet-washing, trine immer- 
sion, anointing the sick, and the holy kiss as ordin- 
ances. As a result from these influences the Turkey- 
Foot Church of Christ practiced feet-washing as an or- 
dinance and saluted with the holy kiss. There are still 
a few members in several of the Somerset county 
churches who wash feet as a social ordinance and hold 
to the kiss as a Christian salutation. Occasionally also 
anointing has been practiced. A few persons, even, 
have left the Disciples and joined the German Baptists 
to find peace of conscience, while more of the latter 
have sought membership with the Disciples and so 
have raised the question of the validity of trine immer- 
sion. The writer's practice, on such occasions, has 
been to leave it wholly with the individual conscience, 
believing that while the Dunkards have trine immer- 
sion in theory they have it not in reality, since the can- 
didate is caused to kneel in the water up to his arm- 



Presbyterian layman, was born, 1679, in Schleisbeim, between Mannbeim and 
Heidelberg, in the Chur Pfaltz (Palatinate), Germany, and died at Germantown, 
Pennsylvania, 1735. Reading the Bible in the light of Patristic history, mistaking 
it for primitive, he adopted trine immersion, and with his wife and six others 
founded the first church of its kind, in 1708, at Schwartzenau, in Westphalia. 
Though peacefully disposed, their goods were spoiled, bonds and imprisonment 
fell to their lot, even to galley-work. So in 1719 twenty families came to German- 
town, Pennsylvania, followed by all within the next ten years, who meanwhile had 
sought rest in vain, first in the Prussian Creyfield, then in Holland. At German- 
town they founded their first church, on Christmas, 1723. Their ministers are 
largely chosen from the laity by lot. In doctrine they resemble the Mennonites, and 
in simplicity of dress the Friends. They practice trine immersion, feet-washing, the 
kiss of charity, laying on of hands, anointing with oil, paschal-love feasts, etc. — In 1883 
they made the decisions by a two-thirds vote of the Annual Meeting mandatory. 
Already divided into two still remaining bodies, a third division established itself in 
a Dayton, Ohio, Convention June 6 and 7, 1883. This last division took the original 
name of their people, the Brethren Church. It embraces the progressive element, 
who do not differ essentially from the old order in doctrine, but favor an educated 
ministry, Sunday-schools, and such like. They allow a liberty of dress, reject the 
mandates of the Annual Meeting, and hold the New Testament as a sufficient 
creed and discipline. Altogether the Dunkards number nearly 100,000 adherents 
scattered throughout a number of States, but chiefly found in Pennsylvania. 



SOUL-SLEEPING, TRINE IMMERSION, ETC. 239 

pits, then, after formally denouncing the world, the 
flesh, and the devil, and having covered his face with 
his hands, his head is thrice dipped forward, once in each 
of the Three Names : but the body as a whole is only 
once immersed. Trine immersion could not be effected 
without each time taking the candidate wholly out of 
the water, a thing the Dunkards never do. Neverthe- 
less there is room for a fair doubt of its validity on the 
ground of Rev. xxii. 18 : "If any man shall add," etc. 

These environments called for an address on these 
matters at Berlin, which the writer delivered on Lord's 
day forenoon, June 18, 1871. Having been announced 
some days in advance, the speaker found on his arrival 
that the Dunkards had sent to a distant county for one 
of their foremost ministers, Eld. H. R. Holsinger, who 
was present to take notes and to review. Both the 
house and the hour of the afternoon appointment were 
tendered him for the purpose, but he insisted on using 
their own house and the evening hour, though assured 
that the speaker could not be present owing to impera- 
tive previous engagements. 

As the matters canvassed in that address are living 
issues throughout Pennsylvania and parts of other 
states, the writer has been urged to reproduce it here. 
The notes, however, were not preserved, and so he can 
but briefly indicate its probable range. 

Introductory. — It is possible to be scriptural and yet 
to be sinfully anti-scriptural. That is to say, you can 
quote the Old Testament as though it were of the 
New ; this the Judaizers did at Antioch, but were re- 
buked in the council at Jerusalem (see Acts xv.). You 
can hold the national and sectional ag though it were 
universal ; so a Jew, like Timothy, could be circum- 



240 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

cised, but not a Gentile, like Titus (comp. Acts xvi. 
with Gal. ii.). You can project the temporary into the 
perpetual, as do those who teach communism of goods 
on the ground of Acts ii. 44. You can take the mir- 
aculous as ordinary, as do the Mormons from Mark xvi. 
17. You can pervert the figurative into the literal, as 
some have done with Matt. v. 29, 30. In all this you 
quote Scripture and yet you sin. 

I. The Paschal supper was a Jewish institution, in 
commemoration of a Jewish event — deliverance from 
Egypt, fifteen hundred years before Christ — but is no 
more a part of Christianity than is circumcision, though 
Christ as a Jezv practiced both. So Paul as a Jew of- 
fered even animal sacrifices for the remission of sins 
(Jewish national sins), after Christ had died and he had 
written Hebrews. See Acts xxi. 26. The Priesthood 
of Jesus did not begin till after his ascension into 
heaven (Heb. vii. 12), and hence his personal acts, like 
eating the passover, were done under the law and as a 
Jew. Christians commemorate their deliverance in the 
Lord's Supper: " Do this in remembrance," etc. 

II. Anointing with oil to heal the sick (James v. 14), 
if not a medical measure on which God's blessing was 
asked, was a miraculous affair like Naaman's bathing in 
Jordan for leprosy (II. Kings v. 14) or the blind man's 
washing in the pool of Siloam (John ix. 7). So the 
twelve miraculously anointed the sick (Mark vi. 13) and 
handkerchiefs or aprons were carried from Paul's person 
with like effect (Acts xix. 12).. But the days of mir- 
acles are past. Paul taught that prophecy and other 
miracles were to cease (I. Cor. 13), and John says 
that prophecy has ceased (Rev. xxii. 18). Hence all 



SOUL-SLEEPING, TRINE IMMERSION, ETC. 24 1 

miracles have ceased, and with them the miraculous 
anointings. 

More likely, however, is that view of James v. 14, 
which construes it of the well-known practice of medi- 
cal anointing, then prevalent and recently revived in our 
own country, which by a Christian was to be done in the 
name of the Lord — as they were directed, " Whatso- 
ever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of 
the Lord Jesus" (Col. iii. 16). This no more makes it 
a church rite than did the giving of a cup of cold water 
in the name of Christ (Mark ix. 41) make that an or- 
dinance. So the devout Christian to-day will adminis- 
ter any known good remedy "in the name of the 
Lord," and with prayer. 

III. The kiss was as common a mode of ordinary 
salutation in the East as shaking hands is with us, and 
had been for hundreds of years before Christ dwelt 
among men. See Gen. xxix. 13; II. Sam. xv. 5; I. 
Kings xix. 20; Prov. xxvii. 6; Luke vii. 45. So com- 
mon was it that when Judas wished to point out Jesus 
to his enemies by means which would be so usual as 
not to be suspected of having a special significance, he 
adopted the kiss (Mark xiv. 45). Neither Jesus nor 
any of his apostles ever commanded kissing. The un- 
qualified expression, "Kiss one another," or "Salute 
one another with a kiss " never occurs. There was no 
need of such a command, for it was the social custom 
of the day and was done anyway. As there were, how- 
ever, some who kissed, like Judas, in an unholy way, 
in hypocrisy, Paul and Peter both insisted on sincerity 
in this social act, and therefore said, Let it be "holy" 
(Rom. xvi. 16; I. Cor. 16. 20; II. Cor. xiii. 12; I. 
Thess. v. 26) ; or let it be "of love" (I. Pet. v. 14). 



24^ TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

Regulating a matter is not creating it, nor ordering its 
perpetuity. So Paul regulated the public appearance, 
but said expressly that mere regulation is not to be 
construed into law (I. Cor. xi. 13-16). 

IV. Feet-washing was also a social custom and grew 
out of the practice of wearing only soles of shoes 
strapped on the feet. It is hundreds of years old. 
(Gen. xviii. 4; xix. 2; xiv. 32; xliii. 24; Judges xix. 
21, and elsewhere). Sometimes persons washed their 
own feet (II. Sam. xi. 8 ; xix. 24 ; Songs v. 3) ; at 
other times the entertainer did it, but usually by a ser- 
vant (I. Sam. xxv. 4). Especially was feet-washing a 
common act of hospitality (Luke vii. 44) just as was 
the placing of food before a guest, or providing lodg- 
ing. 

Hence Paul classifies feet-washing with the rearing 
of children, the entertainment of strangers, the minis- 
tering to the afflicted, and kindred matters. Twice 
over he calls the entire list "good works" (I. Tim. v. 
10). The word "ordinance" has two meanings which 
must not be confounded, for they are as different as 
two good things can possibly be. One meaning is, 
that which is ordained to be observed without regard to 
its kind or manner; and the other is, that which 
is ordained to be observed as a religious rite only. 
Hospitality, feet-washing, and rearing children do not 
come under the last head but under the first They are 
to be observed as "good works," not as "rites." Bap- 
tism and the communion are ordinances in the sacred 
sense, but they are not "good works." An ordinance 
in the sense of a rite is never a "good work " and can 
not be. It is a positive institution and not a moral 
commandment. A good work always grows out of a 



SOUL-SLEEPING, TRINE IMMERSION, ETC. 243 

natural necessity, and in itself serves a natural need. 
To wash a clean foot is not a ' ' good work. When 
Peter desired the Saviour to wash his "clean" parts, 
he refused to do it, and that on the ground that they 
did not "need" it (John xiii. 9, 10). 

The reason for the Saviour's washing the feet of the 
disciples on that particularoccasion is found in the fact 
of their having just quarrelled as to who should be 
greatest. In their ignorance they supposed that his 
kingdom would be a political one, where he is greatest 
who has the most servants. The Saviour told them 
that it was, indeed, true that in worldly kingdoms he is 
the greatest who can command the most servants ; but 
that his kingdom was different and therefore the mat- 
ter was reversed. In his kingdom he would be great- 
est who would do the most service — that it was for 
that reason, and to teach them this lesson, that he 
served them, though he was their Lord and Master. 
See Luke xxii. 24-27; John xiii. 12-17. But as they 
did not then understand or realize this, he said to 
Peter, " What I do thou knowest not now ; but thou 
shalt understand hereafter" (John xiii. 7). 

From the expression to Peter, "If I wash thee not, 
thou hast no part with me " (John xiii. 8), some have 
concluded that feet-washing is essential to salvation. 
These forget that the Saviour often plays on words, mak- 
ing the common sense to illustrate and enforce a special 
and higher one, as: "Let the dead bury their dead " 
(Luke ix. 60). You, Peter, object to my washing your 
feet, but I must do a greater washing for you : I must 
wash you in my very blood or you can not be saved. 
Hence he does not say, If I wash thy feet not, but, 
"If I wash thee not." It is not the feet merely, but 



244 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

"thee" Peter as a whole. When Peter wants to 
understand this of his mere body as a whole, Jesus 
replies, that that kind of washing is only " needed" 
at the feet, since he had been bathing and only his feet 
are now soiled. 

Let feet-washing, then, remain where Paul puts it, 
a "good work," not an ordinance, and on the same 
plane with hospitality and rearing children. 

V. Trine immersion has a wealth of argument 
against it. Its advocates argue (i) that baptizo, the 
word used in the New Testament to institute and de. 
scribe the baptismal rite, is a frequentative verb and so 
requires repetitions of the act to fulfill its meaning, and 
(2) that baptism into "the name of the Father and the 
Son of the Holy Spirit" demands three distinct ac- 
tions. 

It is, however, at least a question whether baptizo 
was ever a frequentative verb. William Webster, of 
Cambridge and of King's Colleges, England, in his "Syn- 
tax and Synonyms of the Greek Testament," says: 

" Bapto, Baptizo, differ chiflty in intensity, like 'to black,' and 'to 
blacken,' Bapto, dip or dye: baptizo, make a thing dipped or dyed: 
hrantizo, make a thing ei'rasmenon. Verbs in izo are always factitive, 
as 'civilize,' or frequentative, as ' Hellenize,' ' philosophize,' until by 
decay of language they lost their factitive or frequentative meaning " 
(P. 197). 

So J elf and Stuart show that baptizo is intensive, 
completive rather that frequentative. 

Even if originally frequentative, it certainly lost 
that force, "by decay of language," so long ago that 
not a single example of it remains in all Greek litera- 
ture. Hence a large per cent, of lexicons do not even 
mention the alleged fact of its frequentative form. 



SOUL-SLEEPING, TRINE IMMERSION, ETC. 245 

Others allude to it only to show its lost force, and, like 
Pickering and Robinson, say: " Frequentative in form 
but not in fact. " And no lexicon, defining it in another 
tongue, ever gives as its equivalent either word or 
phrase that means more than single immersion. Nei- 
ther has any translator in any tongue (See Campbell 
on Baptism, P. 137) ever rendered it by a frequenta- 
tive. 

For hundreds of years before Christ, as well as then 
and since, it has been used of but single immersion and 
nothing else — as : The sinking of a ship, the thrusting 
of a sword into a body as in falling upon it when com- 
mitting suicide, the sinking of soldiers in water by 
weight of armor, the going under of any object because 
of its own or a superincumbent weight, the thrusting of 
a pole or sword into water, the soul as encased in the 
body, and numerous other acts which amount to the 
same thing. All these statements are here made with 
numerous passages under the head lying before the 
writer. They are absolutely final on the question. 

Hence Tertullian, born about the middle of the 
second century, admits that trine immersion is an inno- 
vation : 

" Then we are three times immersed, answering somewhat more 
than the Lord prescribed in the Gospel."— On the Soldier's Crown, 
chap. 3. 

The practice evidently arose with the abnormal em- 
phasis of the trinitarian doctrine. So Jerome, born a. 
d., 331, says on Eph. iv. 5 : 

" And thrice are we immersed, that there may appear one sacra- 
ment of the Trinity." 

Others practiced it from the fanciful notion that it 



246 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

would represent Christ's resurrection on the third day. 
Thus Athanasius, born about the close of third century, 

says: 

" For that the child sinks down thrice in the front, and comes up, 
this shows the death, and the resurrection on the third day ot Christ." 

— Questions on the rsalms, Prop. 92. 

And this was actually three immersions, not merely 
one and two partial ones, such as is now called trine 
immersion, and it flourished in the days and regions of 
infant baptism. The earlier, purer ages knew nothing 
of either. 

It is also argued by trine immersionists that the 
three names in the commission, "baptizing them into 
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy 
Spirit," demand triple action. But if triple action is 
in the names, then it can not be in the baptizing. This 
must first be conceded before the other can be argued. 
But the three names are so united by and (the commas 
of Common Version were not in the original Greek, 
and they are not in the Revision) — the three names are 
so united by and and the location of name in the singu- 
lar, as to bind them into complete unity. To teach three 
actions the reading would have to be, " baptizing them 
into the n-ame of the Father, and into the name of the 
Son, and also in the name of the Holy Spirit." But it 
does not so read. Hence also the abbreviated formula, 
"into the name of Christ," was commonly used, as it 
could not have been had triple action been apostolic. 
See Acts viii. 16 ; xix. 5 ; and compare I. Cor. i. 13; 
Acts x. 48 ; and ii. 38. Besides, John's baptism, 
which alone Jesus and the nucleus of the Pentecostal 
church received, was administered into one name. It 
must, therefore, have been simply "one immersion," 



SOUL-SLEEPING, TRINE IMMERSION, ETC. 247 

as also Christian baptism is called in Eph. iv. 5. And 
finally, since, baptism is a burial and resurrection, in 
the likeness and resurrection of Jesus, (Rom. vi. 4 ; 
Col. ii. 12), and since he was but once buried and rose 
but once, baptism can not be other than a single im- 
mersion. 



CHAPTER XXL 



THE MASONIC TROUBLE. 



The stability of the Somerset Church has been as 
severely tried as it is possible to test any principle. 
The fact of having in its bosom men of intellect, men 
who were leaders of state-interest, brought a time of 
" sifting" such as came to Peter, and such as the 
weaker disciples of the Lord could not know. Its most 
critical passage may be introduced by a quotation from 
Johnson's Encyclopaedia, article Anti-Masonry: 

" In the summer of 1826, a thriftless tailor, named William Mor- 
gan, living in the village of Batavia, in Western New York, it was 
whispered, was engaged in preparing a revelation of the secrets of the 
Masonic order, whereof he was a member. Other Masons, including 
the editor of the village gazette, were understood to be engaged with 
him in the enterprise. Suddenly, Morgan disappeared one evening, 
and it was soon proved that he had been forcibly abducted. Excite- 
ment naturally arose, committees of vigilance and safety were organ- 
ized, and he was traced westward to Fort Niagara, near Lewiston, N. 
Y., where he was temporarily imprisoned, and whence, it was ulti- 
mately testified, he was taken out into deep water in Lake Ontario and 
there sunk, though this was strenously denied, and various stories from 
time to time affirmed that he was seen alive at Smyrna in Asia and 
other places. Such reports did not allay the excitement, which deep- 
ened and diffused itself, finding vent in a political party, which cast 
33,000 votes in the State of New York in 1828, about 70,000 in 1829 
248 



THE MASONIC TROUBLE. 249 

[61,776 in Pa.], and 128,000 in 1830; but of this last a fraction were 
not Anti-Masons, but only Anti-Jackson. The party spread into other 
States, and nominated William Wirt for President and Ellmaker for 
Vice-President in 1832, when they were heartily supported in several 
other States, but carried Vermont only. They probably diverted votes 
enough from Clay to give the States of Ohio and New Jersey to Jack- 
son. They nearly elected Joseph Ritner governor of Pennsylvania, in 
1832 [88,165 votes against 91,335 for Wolf], and did elect him in 1835, 
through a split in the Democratic ranks." 

Chauncey Forward was a Democrat and Charles 
Ogle was an Anti-Mason. They were brethren in the 
church and had been fast friends, and in a manner re- 
mained friends throughout the following struggle ; that 
is, Forward knew no malice and Charles Ogle 
respected him always personally. Forward had 
been in Congress since 1825, and resigned in 
the spring of 1831, to accept the offices of Protho- 
notary, Register, Recorder, Clerk of Orphans' Court, 
etc., offered and urged upon him since the pre- 
ceding fall by Gov. George Wolf,* but he had reelec- 
tion in his power. As a political measure promising 
himself the seat Ogle threw himself more strongly than 
ever into Anti-Masonry. And as Forward had been a 
Mason and had received his present appointment from 
a Masonic Governor, the matter got into the church, 
the members generally taking sides. Indeed, the 
whole community, whether members of any or no 
church, were on one side or the other. Public Anti- 
Masonic meetings were held in the court-house. The 
flame burned higher in the church, because fed by out- 



*The Governor, who had been twice burnt in effigy at Somerset, wrote to 
Forward, April n, 1831 : " It is due, I think, to my friends, if I have any in your 
county, to let them know the true state of the case and that the offices were be- 
stowed on you, not by your solicitation, but were a free-will offering on my part, 
so long ago as last fall," etc. 



250 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

side fuel. Anti-Masonic resolutions were passed in the 
church, and demands were made of Forward that he 
should not only denounce Masonry, but also expose its 
secrets. Besides, a lengthy paper was drawn up and 
signed by twelve brethren, setting forth that Mr. For- 
ward had to them "renounced and denounced" Free- 
masonry; that as he had said, he "loathed and abom- 
inated it;" that "as he saw Freemasonry no person 
could be a Christian and an adhering Freemason;" 
that "if his brethren would let him alone he would 
perhaps be as warm an Anti-Mason as any of them ;" 
that "he had often thought, if he did not renounce 
Freemasonry publicly at the present time, he would 
prepare and leave amongst his papers a posthumous 
work to satisfy his children and posterity of his opinion 
on the subject." In order that the public might have 
in authentic form just what he had to say, but more 
especially to declare himself suitably respecting the 
church-resolutions, Elder Forward submitted the fol- 
lowing, here given from the original : 

"An Address by Chauncey Forward tj the Church at Somerset on Cer- 
tain Resolutions respecting Masonry. A'ovember 29th, 1832. 

" Protesting against all human authority to call me or any other 
man to account for any opinions not expressed — yet being sincerely de- 
sirous that the church should be united, prosperous, and happy in 
Christian fellowship, I do, of my own desire to remove a difficulty ex- 
isting, as is said, in the minds of some of our brethren and sisters in 
Christ on the subject of Freemasonry, lay before the church a brief 
general statement of my views on the subject. 

" I was once attached to the order of Masonry. 1 joined it with 
no intention of doing wrong either to myself or any human being. 
With the same sentiments and feelings I continued in it till some time, 
I think about five years iince, when I withdrew with a certificate of 
good standing in the Fraternity. Since I have been a member of the 
church, I have never entered a Lodge, nor had any communication 



THE MASONIC TROUBLE. 25 I 

with Masons as such. I have thoroughly examined myself and cate- 
chised my own conscience with all diligent scrutiny, and I think I can 
say with perfect justice to myself, that although I have often failed and 
come short in duty, I never did a deliberate injury to any mortal crea- 
ture in compliance with any supposed Masonic obligation or for any 
other reason. 

" Of Masons I will not ?peak in my own language, lest it should 
be offensive, but I will adopt the language of an author of high re- 
spect amongst Anti-Masons, and, as I have understood, a member 
of the Baptist church in the State of New York. In separating Ma- 
sons from the institution to which they belong, he uses this emphatic 
language : 

" ' Far be it from me to speak in reproachful .terms of the gentle- 
men who compose our Lodges. I owe them nothing but kindness. I 
bear them witness so far as I have had opportunity to associate with 
them that they are candid and just men, incapable of being concerned 
in any known imposition — men liberal, social, charitable. Many of 
them eminent in the State, bold in the battlefield, pious in the ministry, 
men amiable in private life, benefactors of their kind, my seniors in 
age and understanding.' 

" N' w if it be that I am in error on this point I have erred with 
Anti-Masonic authority, admitted to be good by members of this 
church in whose veracity I have much confidence. 

"Some three years since, having submitted to the Gospel ordi- 
nance of baptism, I became a member of this church, publicly and 
privately professing to take the Bible alone as my rule of faith and 
practice in religious life. I have on all occasions publicly and privately 
rejected all human creeds, catechisms, confessions of faith, and every 
other invention of men as having no authority to bind him whom the 
Lord of glory had made free. I have, I think you will all bear me 
witness, contended earnestly for the Bible as the sole and only source 
of all genuine morality ; and that for any man or set of men to devise 
any code of morals not drawn from this source is altogether absurd. 
No man knows or can know anything of the will or purpose of Jeho- 
vah except what He has been pleased to reveal and that in His Writ- 
ten Word alone. 

''With all these things before the church and the world I am at a 
loss to understand how any man can suppose me an advocate for Free, 
masonry or any other human institution professing merely to control 
the morals of men. Could it even be supposed that I were insincere in 
my profession as a Christian, one would think that a decent regard to 



252 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

my own character for consistency must forbid the idea unless I am a 
dqwnright simpleton. 

" For the last three years no man has heard me avow myself a de- 
fender of this institution. So far irom it, both members of this 
church and the public have heard me positively disavow any desire or 
design to defend it. There are many things said of the institution, by 
both its friends and its enemies, which 1 do not believe, for the simple 
reason that I have no evidence on which to believe them. Masonry is 
a human institution. But if ever I have ' contended earnestly for the 
faith once delivered to the saints,' and I hope I have, in the presence 
of a rein-trying and heart searching God I appeal to all mankind to say 
if ever I spoke of human inventions in any way whatever and then ex- 
cepted Masonry out of the general conclusion. I can not conceive 
anything from which such a supposition could arise except from the 
fact that I have refused to become a political Anti-Mason. My abhor- 
rence of indiscriminate warfare against a whole body of men, where 
any could be truly spoken of in the language just quoted, is at least 
sufficient to justify my own conscience in continuing to adhere politically 
to the old Democratic party. There are hundreds of men whose polit- 
ical sentiments I know, as well Masons as others, to whom I could 
confide my political interests but would not trust a moment in my 
religious concerns. In the kingdom of our Lord I acknowledge no 
supreme power — no law-giver but King Jesus. I acknowledge the 
civil power not as superior but subordinate to His — not for the correc- 
tion but for the protection of the public morals and rights of every citi- 
zen. In the affairs of the Lord's kingdom I would not agree to re- 
ceive assistance from any earthly ruler. The best thing we can ask of 
the civil authority is to let our religion alone. The best way to have it 
so is not to thrust our peculiar religious sentiments into the civil rule of 
country. Acting in the kingdom of the Lord we are bound to love the 
Lord supremely and the brethren with a pure heart fervently. In the 
State, when new relations obtain, we are bound to respect the civil 
magistrate and endeavor to protect and sustain the civil rights of every 
man as guaranteed by the constitution and laws. No citizen can be right- 
fully disfranchised until the constitution and laws have declared him so. 
— These observations are not made with any view to hurt the feelings 
or influence the minds of any of my brethren who may differ with me, 
but simply to vindicate my own conduct. These are some of the rea- 
sons why I am opposed to political Anti-Masonry. They may be 
wrong, but they are at least sincere. So far I hope my conduct is 
cleared from any suspicion. But lest what 1 have said respecting the 



THE MASONIC TROUBLE. 253 

inventions of men should be construed by some one present into some- 
thing which I do not intend, let me remark that I should be ashamed 
to say or think that there are not amongst all the numerous sects who 
have, some of them at least, more or less adopted or acted upon these 
things, as honorable, honest, good men and Christians* as can be 
found elsewhere. 

" Masonry itself, so far as I am acquainted with it, is not a politi- 
cal, and, if it do, certainly ought not to pretend to be a religious insti- 
tution. It is true that the institution in its lectures, as is generally known, 
enjoins upon its members to do justice to all men ; to obey the laws of the 



* In asserting his opinion that there are as good Christians amongst numerous 
of the sects as can be found elsewhere, Mr. Forward is in good company. In the 
appendix to his debate on Romanism (which Bishop Purcell suppressed) Alex- 
ander Campbell says of Episcopalians, Methodists and Baptists: "I find in all 
these communities, as well as in some others, excellent men with whom I fully har- 
monize in all cardinal points of religion " {Harbinger 1837, p. 230). When a lady 
from Lunenburg, Va., found fault with this utterance, he defended it at great 
length in the September issue of the same year, making a distinction between per- 
fect and imperfect Christians, promising nothing to those willftilly imperfect, and 
making it equally imperfecting to come short in a moral as in a positive command- 
ment. " I can not, therefore," he says, " make any one duty the standard of 
Christian state or character, not even immersion into the name of the Father, of 
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and in my heart regard all that have been 
sprinkled in infancy without their own knowledge and consent, as aliens from 
Christ and the well-grounded hope of heaven" {Harbinger, 1837, p. 412). In the 
December number he shows to further inquirers, by sundry quotations from the 
Christian Baptist that this has always been his opinion and is the very spirit of 
his movement. In repelling the charge of being schismatic, he shows, in the April 
number, that the Campbells and their co-laborers would never have left the Pres- 
byterians had they allowed them to be true to conscience. His language is : " So 
fully were we aware of the evils of schism, aud so reluctant to assume the attitude 
of a new party, that we proposed to continue in the Piesbyterian connection, even 
after we were convinced of various imperfections in the form of its government, in 
its system of discipline, in its administration of Christian ordinances, and of the 
want of Scriptural warrant for infant baptism; provided only, they would allow us 
to follow out our convictions by not obliging us to do what we could not approve, 
and allowing us to teach and enforce only those matters for which we could pro- 
duce clear Scriptural authority, and make all the rest a subject of forbearance till 
farther enlightened" (p. 146). 

Nearly a decade later Mr. Campbell says: " I am also of opinion, that I have 
more good reasons and scriptural authority for refusing communion with many im- 
mersed persons than for refusing Christian communion with some unimmersed, but 
very exemplary followers of the Lamb. Still, should any person persist in treating 
immersion as a human tradition, with whom I might have communed on several 
occasions, after that he had had opportunity of better instruction and indicated an 
uncandid temper, I would say to him that I could not, in good conscience, invite 
him to participate with me in any Christian institution." — {Millennial Harbinger, 
1845, p. 140). 



254 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

government under which they live ; to be engaged in no plot or conspir- 
acy against the State, to do to others as they would wish others to do to 
them, etc. But these things are only borrowed from the Christian system, 
and are, of course, all well enough. Were I to defend them, I would but 
defend the cause of my Redeemer. But whenever Masonry departs from 
the Scriptures and adopts a ceremonial and principles of its own, that 
ceremonial and those principles will find no defender in me. Thus far 
the institution is a mere human device and must share the fate of all in- 
stitutions of this kind when viewed in the light of divine truth. 

' ' That I would be supposed capable of shutting my eyes against 
the glorious light of the Sun of Righteousness to grope my way 
through the darkness of this world with an extinguished taper in my 
hand is really unaccountable to me. 

"As to assistance of Masonry to religion. — My opinion is that Je- 
hovah's arm needs no assistance, and the divine mind needs no illum- 
ination. In proof of this, God expressly forbade His chosen people to 
form any alliances with the surrounding nations lest they should cease 
to rely on His power alone. It is with this same view of the subject that I 
reject the ballot-box or any other alliance with human means in our 
warfare against all spiritual wickedness in either high or low places. 
'The sword of the Spirit which is the word of God,' is all the weapon 
which as a Christian I feel myself authorized to use in the contest for 
the supremacy of the Gospel. I believe firmly in the ample suffi- 
ciency of the means which God alone has provided. 

" Since the last meeting I have had in my possession and have ex- 
amined with some care the resolutions as passed by the church. With- 
out any disparagement of the motives or judgment of the majority 
present at their enactment, they are so much what they profess to op- 
pose that they are a mere set of human opinions which I can not con- 
scientiously consent to have bound on me as a rule of either faith or 
practice. They are like every first step in a new departure from the Gos- 
pel alone as a rule of church discipline. 

"I have never proposed salvation to any man in any terms but 
those of the New Testament alone. I have never told any man that to 
be one of us he would ever be required to submit to any ordeal not ex. 
pressly provided for in the word of God. I solemnly declare that as 
long as I keep my senses I never will proclaim any other Gospel — or 
rather that which is not another Gospel but a rule of man's own mak- 
ing. I never will give the lie to all my former conduct and professions 
by telling any portion of mankind that as penitents returning to seek 



THE MASONIC TROUBLE. 255 

the Lord they are to be frowned upon by an invidious rule established 
by ourselves in anticipation of their hypocrisy. 

"We believe that in Jesus dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead 
bodily. Therefore, that He foresaw and foreknew all these things 
which we are discussing just as we do now, is perfectly clear. Had 
such distinctions been either proper or necessary, He would certainly 
have told us so. 

"Having no desire to bind these views on you, or to condemn 
your faith because it may not agree with mine in these particulars, I can 
still love and respect you as sons and daughters of the Most High." 

The principles here laid down deserve to live. 
There is also a calmness about this document charac- 
teristic of the man, and which had its effect. As, 
however, the season of the next year's election drew 
nigh the Masonic matter was agitated with renewed 
vigor by persons chiefly interested in politics, and 
again the church was involved. Anti-Masons of the 
world felt not the restrictions of truth, and Forward 
was reported as having signed the above-mentioned 
resolutions. A pretended church-record to that effect 
was even exhibited at the usual electioneering places. 
Numerous other groundless stories were put into circu- 
lation. Therefore, on September 19, 1833, six leading 
Democrats, in a lengthy letter, called on Mr. Forward 
to declare himself as to the truth or falsity of these 
stories. This he did in the Somerset Whig. 

About this time a meeting was called in Ogle's of- 
fice with a view to compel Forward into the Anti- 
Masonic ranks by getting him to expose the secrets of 
Masonry. Some ten or twelve special friends alone 
were invited. Ogle stated the case in a speech so im- 
pressive that even Forward's friends feared he could 
have nothing effective to say in reply. In his quiet 
w T ay, however, he refused to reveal secrets which were 



256 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

nothing more than mere signs of recognition, and 
could do no one not a Mason any real good, but would 
work great harm against others and convert him into a 
perjurer. He planted himself firmly on the principles 
laid down in his Address to the church, but begged 
any of his friends who could agree with Ogle to join 
him. This meeting split the church. The Ogle party 
met in his office for services, while the Forward party- 
met in the academy building. Forward felt that he 
could not go out to preach peace to others with practi- 
cal war at home, and so the work in the county lagged. 
Each party wished peace ; but each, believing that they 
had sound principle on their side, knew not how to 
yield. Elder William Ballentine came to heal the 
breach, but failed. Finally, in the forepart of October, 
1834, the two Campbells, Alexander and his father, 
took the matter in hand. Having learned the status 
and reasons of each party, they called a day-light 
meeting in the court-house and Alexander Campbell 
delivered a five-hours' address in which he convinced 
all that Forward's position was substantially correct. 
Mutual pledges were exchanged and universal hand- 
shaking and jubilation ensued. Peace had come to 
stay, and new robed prosperity smiled everywhere and 
on all. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

CHURCH DIFFICULTIES. 

Since the foregoing chapter is in type, a paper, 
then looked for in vain, has come to hand. It is 
The Whig, of September 25, 1833, and contains a 
lengthy answer to a number of questions addressed to 
Mr. Forward in two letters by many political friends. 
From Forward's answer, the following paragraphs are 
worthy of preservation : 

" It .will be recollected that I belong to a church professing to 
oppose as unauthorized every assumption of human power in the moral 
and religious government of mankind. In speaking on this subject, I 
have been told that men have inferred that I was opposed to Masonry, 
inasmuch as it must, according to its advocates, be ranked amongst 
human inventions for moral government. If at such times Masonry 
had entered into my mind, I should not have made any exception in its 
favor." 

"There are principles recognized 'by the Masonic institution which 
no honest man can renounce — such, for instance, as that there is a God 
who is the creator and supreme ruler of the universe, and many others 
of like kind. But it will strike everybody that these principles are not 
at all peculiar to this institution, and, if I may be allowed the expres- 
sion, are borrowed from one of infinite excellence. So far as these prin- 
ciples extend, no man can have any objection to them ; but whenever 
Masonry goes beyond these and adopts principles and ceremonies pecu- 

257 



258 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

liar to itself, I am opposed to it. I was admitted a member of the in- 
stitution when a young man — about fifteen years ago. I was highly 
pleased with its novelty, emblems, etc. About five years ago, or per- 
haps more, I left it with a certificate of good standing. T withdrew 
silently, not because I had any settled conviction, but because doubt 
struck me as to the propriety of some things connected with the insti- 
tution. I am now, and long have been, thoroughly satisfied that its 
peculiarities are unsusceptible of defense. I never made any formal 
renunciation of these things, and, until I can see some connection be- 
tween printer's ink and the purity of a man's conscience, I do not in- 
tend to do so." 

"Suppose I saw two men quarreling, and about to break the 
peace and disturb the harmony of society. Is it my duty to join myself 
to one party and assist in drubbing the other ? Now I have seen the 
progress of Anti-Masonry marked by the destruction of the peace of 
neighborhoods, churches and families. Because I am opposed to 
Masonry, as I have before stated, must I assist in urging on this war ? 
Not at all.. In such wars both parties are generally wrong, and as a 
good citizen I feel myself bound to stand aloof." 

"It is impossible but that occasions of stumbling 
should come," said the Master; but he added, "woe 
unto him through whom they come !" In the Masonic 
trouble we had an instance of settling a difficulty by 
two evangelists who came as evangelists and without 
the invitation of both parties to the trouble. The chief 
reliance, however, was not so much evangelistic author- 
ity as the masterly presentation of the demands of 
righteousness, in an exhaustive address. There was as 
yet no such organization of evangelists as is recom- 
mended in chap. xiv. , but the Campbells were such 
overshadowing figures that their authority was tacitly 
conceded. There was no calling in of the elderships 
of neighboring churches, for Somerset stood prince 
among them all, and that course would have been 
humiliating and an offense against all intuitions of fitness 
and right. 



CHURCH DIFFICULTIES. 



259 



Early in the forties a different case occurred. The 
church at the Ridge, that is, Laurel Hill, was split in 
two. On the one side were the Morrisons, John and 
William (Joseph, the oldest, had already removed), also 
Henry Brindle, Mark Ross, and others. On the other 
side were George, William, and Levi Scott, Daniel 
Wright, Jesse Moore, and others. The difficulty grew 
out of building a school-house. George Scott was a 
director and had the school-house built central to all 
patrons. The Morrisons wished it to one side, more 
to their convenience. At this distance it seems a little 
matter over which to split a church, but experience has 
proved over and over again, that the most serious quar- 
rels are usually due to little matters. Take, for exam- 
ple, the shades of difference between kindred creeds. 
Self-interest, self-love, pride of self-consistency, etc., 
are so many microscopes which we either are not aware 
of possessing or know not how to tear from our eyes. 
In some way which the writer has not been able to as- 
certain, it was left to the Somerset church to select, 
under the guidance of Thomas Campbell, a committee 
or board of arbitration. The selection made consisted 
of Thomas Campbell as evangelist ; Harmon Husband 
and Jonas Younkin, elders of Turkey-Foot ; Charles 
Lavan, elder of Johnstown ; John F. Kantner, deacon, 
and Wm. H. Posthlethwaite, elder of Somerset. These 
persons organized for business at the Ridge, heard the 
cause of each side, then adjourned to Ogle's office in 
Somerset for deliberation. Their finding was in favor of 
the Scott side, and required the parties mutually to for- 
give and to forget. As the Morrison side refused to 
submit to the finding, they were regarded as the fac- 



260 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

tion, and the Scott side was recognized as the church 
at Laurel Hill. 

Cases like these, as well as others but remotely re- 
lated, occurring in the then new Disciple movement, 
called for and received a pretty thorough discussion in 
their religious publications. The trend of these dis- 
cussions may be indicated by a few brief quotations 
from Alexander Campbell's writings : 

" In order to the purity of the Christian profession and the har- 
mony of churches, when a member is excluded from one church by a 
solemn vote of the brethren, no other church can consistently receive 
him, while lying under such censure. He can only be restored on re- 
pentance by and with the consent of the congregation that excluded 
him; for should a sister church receive an excluded member, it -would, 
in fact, be assuming an authority over other churches, and reversing 
the decision of the church that excluded him, and that, too, on ex parte 
testimony." — Mill. Hard., 1835, p. 519. 

"The right of prayer is not more natural or necessary than the 
right of appeal. There is no government, or state, or family, that can 
subsist without it." — Mill. Harb., 1841, p. 54. 

"The community that excluded them is itself amenable to the 
church, the whole church of God, of which in their best estate they 
are but a part. And these brethren making their appeal to a disinter- 
ested community or communities, promising submission to their de- 
cisions, must, on every principle of New Testament justice and apos- 
tolic principle, have a hearing. . . . IS or can a majority oppress a 
weak minority without the right of appeal from its decisions. The 
brethren in the case before us, on refusal of a hearing from the party 
that excluded them, have, on all principles of justice, a right to 
appeal to any other community or communities agreed upon by both ; 
and on refusal of such reference, the church refusing, cuts herself off 
from the communion of all other churches of Christ, and the party 
oppressed by such usurpation have a right, without the consent of 
such society, to appeal to any other congregation for a hearing, and to 
stand or fall by its decision." — Mill. Harb., 1840, pp. 501-504. 

"When any particular congregation offends against the constitu- 
tion of the Messiah's kingdom by denying the doctrine, by neglecting 
the discipline, or by mal-administration of the affairs of Christ'? 



CHURCH DIFFICULTIES. 26l 

church, essentially affecting the well-being of individual members or 
other congregations, then said church is to be judged by the eldership 
of other churches, or by some other tribunal than her own, as an 
accused or delinquent member of a particular congregation is to be 
tried by the constituted eldership of his own congregation." — MilL 
Hard., 1841, p. 45. 

What further turn these discussions took, may be 
gathered from quotations made in Chapter XIV. from 
the Harbinger of 1855. 

The opposition to secret societies broke out afresh 
in the days of Know-Nothingism, namely, in 1854. 
Without unnecessary detail, it may be said that the 
contest was short, incisive, and decisive, splitting the 
church for a night and a day. The advocates of secret 
societies made and carried the point that, in matters 
not clearly detrimental to religion and morals, each in- 
dividual must be allowed to judge of his own course 
and actions. That point gained, most of the secret 
society men (women, it seems, don't need them), as a 
voluntary peace-offering, withdrew from the Know- 
Nothings and Odd Fellows ; for Masonry here had 
gone down in 1837, and was not again revived till 
1865. 

The discipline of offenders in the Somerset Church 
used to be immediate and severe. Sinners against 
chastity were not even given the opportunity of re- 
pentance and confession till they had spent some time 
without the pale of fellowship, and had there shown a 
contrite course. However, since 1871, repentance and 
confession are accepted in lieu of expulsion. Games 
at cards, attendance at shows, and dancing, even if 
among a select set and in a private parlor, demanded 
confession of guilt and repentance, or an infliction of 



262 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

disfellowship. A prominent young lad) , for example, 
made a tour of the West in the fore part of the fifties. 
Wherever she was importuned to join in the dance, she 
steadfastly refused on the score of her church-relation- 
ship. On her arrival home, a party was given in her 
honor, where part of the pastime was dancing. To grat- 
ify her companions, she took a few turns over the floor. 
The elders demanded confession, but she insisted that 
she could see no sin in what she had done, and refused 
to stultify herself by uttering words she could not 
mean. She was, therefore, expelled, and is out of 
church-relationship to this day. Her religious convic- 
tions will not allow her to subscribe to the creeds of 
other religious bodies, and her unchanged opinions, 
together with bitter memories, debar her from return 
to the Disciples. 

The solution of the questions involved in this case 
came prominently before the Somerset Church in 1870 
and 1 87 1. A large number of the young people had 
been dancing. The elders demanded confession, but 
the young people declared that they could see no sin 
in what they had done, and asked for chapter and verse 
which specify dancing as sin. In the absence of such 
definite showing, they maintained that they must re- 
gard the demand of the elders as a creed — unwritten, 
it is true, but just as much a creed as if written, it 
being the elevation of a deduction or opinion into a 
term of fellowship. Many who neither danced nor 
cared to dance sided with this view of the case, till more 
than half of the church was ready to step down and out, 
should, the customary discipline be enforced. Sunday- 
school teachers, regular attendants at the prayer and 
Lord's day meetings, and at least one who declared 



CHURCH DIFFICULTIES. 263 

that she regularly read a chapter in her Bible and 
prayed after returning from the dance and before retir- 
ing, were of the number. 

Not willing to countenance or endure this state of 
things, and yet dreading the consequences of enforcing 
their convictions, the local officers finally thought best 
to resign, that there might be a new and possibly more 
acceptable election. Meanwhile the pastor sought to 
present a solution which would commend itself to all 
as satisfactory and scriptural. This he did in an 
address which may be summarized as follows : 

1. It certainly can never be justly and rightfully re- 
quired of any one to confess that he did wrong so long 
as he can not see his act to be such. That would be 
asking him to play the hypocrite and would be des- 
truction of all Christian manhood Nor will conviction 
be secured by quoting such passages as L Cor. viii. 12, 
"And thus, sinning against the brethren, and wound- 
ing their conscience when it is weak, ye sin against 
Christ;" for that would make the eldership to be the 
party of w r eak and sickly conscience — the very thing 
they wish not to prove, and which, if true, would unfit 
them for office. The true solution must be found in a 
wholly different course. 

2. An essential difference between the Old and the 
New Testament economies consists in the fact that the 
former is "letter" and the latter is "spirit" (Rom. 
vii. 6; II. Cor. iii. 6). That is to say, the one gave 
express statutes or literal commandments for every duty 
it enforced, whether of injunction or of prohibition, as 
masters direct slaves, or parents manage infant chil- 
dren ; while the other speaks to us as " sons," by giv- 
ing, as a rule, only such general directions as suffice to 



264 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

make known principles. Hence the former is said to be 
"contained in ordinances," or called "statutes" — 
terms which in any faithful version of the New Testa- 
ment are never applied to the gospel as a whole or to 
any of its essential parts. Hence also the former is 
called "a yoke of bondage, " and the latter "freedom " 
(Gal. v. 1). So the word "law" or "the law" fitly 
and often describes the old dispensation, while it never 
describes the new except in an accommodated or quali- 
fied sense, and then but seldom, as "the law of 
liberty" (James i. 25 ; ii. 12). On the contrary, we are 
expressly said to be "not under law, but under grace " 
(Rom. vi. 14). Ours is, therefore, the reign of princi- 
ples. See how the Lord, in the fifth of Matthew, 
breaks the encasing statutes of the law, one by one, to 
let their "spirit " out, that it may be "fulfilled !" He 
who looks for statutes or ordinances to measure out 
his duty will open the New Testament to little profit or 
altogether in vain. He is just the kind of a man who 
would take the " spirit " of this economy and re-encase 
it in "letter," that is, make a "creed" and then cry 
out against all creeds but his. He who must have a 
"statute," a " thus-saith-the-Lord, " before he will 
rein up "the flesh," belongs not to the gospel of 
grace. He is a legalist. There were such men in 
Paul's day, hence he wrote: " For ye, brethren, were 
called for (or to) freedom ; only use not your freedom 
for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be ser- 
vants one to another. For (even) the whole law is ful- 
filled in one word, even in this : Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself" (Gal. v. 13, 14). That is, Because 
statutes are absent, do n't think that the flesh may riot ; 
love is the guiding principle. 



CHURCH DIFFICULTIES. 265 

The relation, therefore, between brother and brother 
is not defined by statutes, but is prompted, guided, 
and limited by love. So also is the relation between 
man and his Maker. Whatever, therefore, love enjoins 
is duty, and what love forbids is sin, though never once 
so named in the New Testament. By its fruits, then, 
must dancing be judged. If the history of the prom- 
iscuous dance shows it to be productive of piety and 
spirituality, it is our duty to engage in it ; if its history 
shows it to be harmless, then it is indifferent, and may 
be indulged in as a recreation ; but if, as thousands of 
even worldlings testify, it leads to worldliness, carnality 
and vice, it is sinful and to be shunned. 

True, in the New Testament there are commands ; 
but the word commandment is generic. Principles can 
be commanded as well as statutes. Such statement of 
principles aside, then, outside of a few matters which 
can not be reached by general principles, as the insti- 
tution of the Lord's supper, baptism, and the Lord's 
day, and a few directions respecting worship and church 
officers, there are no commandments in any proper 
sense of the word. The epistles, as a rule, are only 
instances of the application of the general principles of 
the gospel to particular cases which seldom find a 
parallel in our day; and by their " and-such-like's" 
these Epistles invite us to make similar applications of 
the same general principles to the particular emergen- 
cies of our day. 

For the sake of corroboration, and at the same time 
show that the more thoughful teachers among the Dis- 
ciples all move along this line, a few quotations from 
Alexander Campbell's writings may be in place : 



266 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

" Exhortations and admonitions concerning morals, found in the 
Epistles, grew out of the occasion, or were suggested by the inad- 
vertencies of the disciples. But had these epistles never been written, 
or any part of them, the Christian Institution would have been perfect 
and entire, wanting nothing. The gospel — yes, the gospel, the procla- 
mation of God's ph lanthropy, as it was uttered by the apostles on 
Pentecost, or in any of their converting discourses — would have been, 
and still is, alone sufficient to produce those principles in the heart 
which issue in all holiness and in all morality." — Christian Baptist, 
Burnet's edition, p. 658. 

" Many Christians have read and rummaged the apostolic writings 
with the spirit and expectations of a Jew in perusing the writings 
of Moses — Jews in heart, but Christians in profession. They have 
sought, but sought in vairi, for an express command or precedent for 
matters as minute as the seams in the sacerdotal robes, or the pins and 
pilasters of the tabernacle." — Same, p. 500. 

" The Jews were under a government of precepts — we are under a 
government of principles. Hence all was laid down to them in broad 
and plain commandments ; and the book which contained their wor- 
ship was a ritual, a manual of religious and moral duties, accurately 
defined to the utmost conceivable minutiae ; insomuch that nothing was 
left to discretion — nothing to principle. 

" There is nothing like this in the Mew Institution. We have no 
ritual, liturgy, nor manual. The New Constitution and Law of Love 
does no more than institute the converting act, the Lord's Supper, and 
the Lord's day. Immersion, or the converting act, by which persons 
are brought into the kingdom of principles and introduced into the 
rank of sons, is not so much an ordinance in the kingdom as that 
which brings us into it. The Lord's Supper, a weekly commemoration 
of the great sacrifice, and the day of the resurrection of Jesus, though 
positive institutions, are not presented to Christians accompanied with 
directions for the mode of celebration, as were any of the former insti- 
tutions under the Jewish Age. There were more directions about the 
celebration of the Passover and the observance of the Sabbath, than 
are to be found in the whole New Institution. Nay, indeed, there is 
nothing of that sort in the Christian economy. No mode of eating the 
supper, no mode of observing the Lord's day, is suggested in the apos- 
tolic writings. In this Christians are left to the discretion of full- 
grown men, to the government of principle. All things are to be 
done decently and in order ; but the modes of decency and order in 



CHURCH DILFICULTIES. • 267 

the celebration of these Christian institutions are nowhere pointed 
out." — Same, p. 657. 

" Hence the obedience of faith is also the obedience of love. 
There requires no precepts nor commands, with a penalty, other than 
the enjoyment of this love of God and His favor necessarily requires 
conformity. Hence all the exhortations to religious and moral ob- 
servances are drawn from the love of God to us." — Same, p. 657. 

"There is no serving from memory in the service of love. The 
Jews required a good memory rather than a good judgment. . . 
Love is a master whose power is felt without recollection. Omni- 
present and omnipotent, too, in moral influence. It is the moral prin- 
ciple of gravity in the moral universe, and, like physical attraction, 
controls everything." — Same, p. 657. 

3. The application of general principles to particu- 
lar cases is, however, not alike easy in all instances or for 
all persons and of all ages. ' ' Solid food is for full- 
grown men, even those who by reason of use have 
their senses exercised to discern good and evil " (Heb. 
v. 14). Hence Paul wrote to the Philippians : ' ' And this 
I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more 
in knowledge and all discernment ; so that ye may ap 
prove the things that are excellent ; that ye may be 
sincere and void of offense unto the day of Christ, 
being filled with the fruits of righteousness " (chap. i. 
9-1 1). It is, therefore, only ' ' whereunto we have al- 
ready attained," as a whole congregation, that we can 
be expected to " walk by the same rule " (Phil. iii. 16). 
In some cases those who have outstripped the others 
may be exhorted : - ! The faith which thou hast, have to 
thyself before God" (Rom. xiv. 22). The bearing of 
those who are further advanced must proceed toward 
others on the following advice : " But him that is weak 
in faith receive ye, yet not to doubtful disputations " 
(Rom. xiv. 1). And when Paul, without specifying 
what matters belong to the following categories, says : 



268 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

" Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, what- 
soever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, 
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are of 
good report ; if there be any virtue, and if there be 
any praise, think on these things" (Phil. iv. 8), he not 
only thereby asks all to be guided by general principles 
leading in these directions, but the expression "what- 
soever things are of good report " directs the less ex- 
perienced to pay respect to the judgment of the more 
experienced and those of acknowledged piety. If by 
these a matter is not "well spoken of," and the matter 
in question is not with the others a matter of con- 
science, they should avoid it. So the inexperienced 
in secular business constantly pay due regard to the 
judgments of their seniors ; and it is at least just as 
reasonable and wise that we should do so in the moral 
and spiritual sphere. It is, doubtless, on this account 
that Peter says: "Ye younger, be subject unto the 
elder" (I. Pet. v. 5). — If, therefore, you can see no 
harm in the dance, but find that it is not " of good re- 
port " and that your seniors in experience and piety 
say that they see harm or sin in it, you ought to dis- 
trust your "younger" judgment and to " be subject to 
the elder." Nevertheless, so long as you do not of 
yourselves see it to be wrong you can not be rightfully 
expected to confess sorrow and beg pardon in this re- 
spect ; but you can and ought truthfully and frankly to 
say, "I am sorry to have done that which seems 
wrong to others, and since it is not necessary to my 
existence or sense of right and duty, I will hereafter 
refrain from it." 

This course not only convinced many at once that 



CHURCH DIFFICULTIES. 269 

the dance was wrong, but, for the reasons urged, made 
all willing to abstain from it, and so ended the trouble. 



Another matter, not wholly of the past, deserves 
mention here. Not that it is so much entitled to the name 
of church trouble as that it illustrates what a genuine 
spirit of peace can do. Early in Bro. Bittle's pastorate 
the organ question came to the front. Ed. M. Schrock, 
the then newly elected Sunday-school superintendent, 
in harmony with the wishes of most of the Sunday- 
school, proposed the use of his organ in the school. 
L. F. Bittle then delivered a strong sermon against the 
organ ; whereupon Mr. Schrock threw up his position, 
quit attending the church, and has damaged faith in 
Christianity. Sentiment, however, grew all the more 
in favor of the organ till all the Sunday-school and its 
workers, with perhaps a single exception, were anx- 
iously desirous for its use. A few years ago it was, 
therefore, introduced, and it has since also found its way 
into the young people's prayer-meeting. In the Lord's 
day services, however, and in the general prayer- 
meeting it is not used, because some half a dozen prom- 
inent members of the older class and perhaps twice as 
many others out of over three hundred, are opposed 
to it, notwithstanding that the conduct of the singing 
depends on those favoring the organ. Those who 
oppose the use of the organ in worship do so on the 
well-known ground that it is an un-apostolic innovation 
void of a " thus-saith-the-Lord," and no more reason- 
able than a substitution of sprinkling for immersion. 
Those who favor its use protest against this turning 
"the law of liberty" into legalism, and contend that 
nothing is an " innovation," in the objectionable sense, 



27O TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

which does not displace, but truly helps Christians 
better to carry out any command of the Lord. That 
just as modern railroads help men better to "go into all 
the world and preach the gospel," so the organ helps 
to obey the command to sing by giving the leader the 
practicable pitch and each part its chord, enabling all 
to worship from the first syllable of the song instead of 
turning those, whose voices are not adapted to soprano, 
for a time into calculating machines to know where 
their respective parts come in. And because the instru- 
ment thus helps in the worship, they regard its use a 
duty. Nor can they see, they say, why it should be 
right to be guided by the eye to the printed words and* 
tune and wrong to receive such guidance through the 
ear. — But be that matter as it may, the spirit is cer- 
tainly beautiful, which enables so many to waive a 
privilege and even to forego a duty out of consideration 
for those who do not see with their eyes. That spirit 
deserves a larger copying, and so would oftener find a 
repayment in kind. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

PASTORS. 

Somerset had been fortunate in having elders who 
were capable of teaching and guiding the flock. They, 
however, often felt the need of evangelists for special 
work, and accepted their services. But the time came 
when the people wished to have the bread of life 
regularly broken to them by men who had been spe- 
cially trained for that purpose and who gave their whole 
time to that kind of work — men whose wider experi- 
ence also eminently fitted them for counsel in trying 
emergencies. Though these men were only in one or 
two instances formally elected to the eldership, they 
did the work of scriptural elders, no matter who held 
the office, and therefore were not only pastors, but 
even the pastors. The first of these men from abroad 
was — 

Charles Louis Loos, who came here in 1850 and left 
towards the end of 1855. On his father's side he is 
French, and on his mother's, German. He was born 
in France, December 22, 1823, where he lived eleven 
years, attended school, and spoke both languages. 
This knowledge helped him to a rapid mastery of the 



272 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

English after coming to this country. He was reared 
a member of the Lutheran church, but at a meeting 
held in 1838, by J. Wesley Lanphear, at Minerva, 
Starke county, Ohio, he became a Disciple. Soon 
after that he began to teach school, and next, to 
preach some near his Ohio home. In 1842 he entered 
Bethany College, where he graduated in 1846, and 
taught three years in the preparatory department. In 
1848 he was married to the daughter of a Presbyterian 
minister, Miss Rosetta E. Kerr. In 1849 ne was or " 
dained to the ministry, and preached a year at Wells- 
burg, Va., before locating at Somerset. At Somerset 
he did an enormous amount of work. He preached 
regularly for the church, attended missionary gather- 
ings in various parts of the State, published the Disci- 
ple, and taught a classical school. The Disciple was 
the first year an octavo monthly of thirty-two pages, 
begun in July 185 1, and a semi-monthly, quarto form, 
thereafter. Most of the original matter was from his 
own pen, and was of a high grade. The Somerset 
Weekly Visitor, of July 2, 185 1, noticed it thus : 

" The first number of this work is before us, and we consider it 
the neatest work of the kind in our knowledge. Its appearance is a 
credit to the county. Mr. Loos, the editor, is a gentleman of 
acknowledged talents, and a finished scholar." 

In 1853 he began his Collegiate Institute, in a 
brick building erected for that purpose on a lot adjoin- 
ing the present Disciple parsonage. In his announce- 
ment to the public, Prof. Loos said : 

"The aim of this institution is, that all its advantages shall be 
enjoyed equally free by every class of citizens ; therefore, the most 
solemn pledge is given that it shall ever be kept free from every 
den> minational influence. In the selection of teachers, regard will be 



PASTORS. 273 

paid to this aim. . . . The institution is intended for young gen- 
tlemen and young ladies, ... not for young children. . . . 
Our course of studies will embrace all that is usually studied in our 
higher institutions of learning, and will be so extended as to enable 
students of diligence to continue these studies from three to four years 
at the institute." 

The following year Mr. Campbell wrote of it thus : 

"Our Bro. C. L. Loos is as competent and as well furnished a 
teacher as any man of his age in any portion of our country. His at- 
tainments in the languages of Greece and Rome, of Germany, France 
and the United States, are such as few men of his age possess. He 
has three mother tongues — German, French and English. And for 
moral worth, he has, in my acquaintance, no superior. He merits, and 
will, no doubt, receive, a liberal patronage." — Mill. Harb., 1854, 
p. 115. 

In January, 1856, Prof. Loos took charge of the 
Eighth and Walnut street church, Cincinnati, Ohio, and 
assisted in editing the Christian Age. In 1857 he be- 
came President of Eureka College, Illinois, but accepted 
the Chair of Ancient Languages in Bethany the next 
year. For some years he has been President of the 
Bible College in Kentucky University. Four of his 
children are either themselves preaching or married to 
preachers; one of them, Mrs. E. T Williams, will 
soon start with her husband as a missionary to China. 

The following hasty pencil sketch, sent before pub- 
lication was thought of, is so good that Prof. Loos will, 
no doubt, pardon its verbatim publication : 

"My first visit to Somerset was during the summer of 1847. It 
was a transient stay. I was invited there by the church, and preached 
for a number of days in the church in town, and also, in German, 
" on the Ridge," in the school-house near Bro. Faust's. It was to me 
an exceedingly delightful visit, and I returned to Bethany with the 
very best impressions of the church and people at Somerset. 

In September, 1850, after attending the large cooperation meeting 



274 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

at Johnstown with Bro. J. W. Lanphear, where we met a large delega- 
tion of brethren and sisters from Somerset, I went to Somerset on my 
way home. The brethren of Somerset had already invited me to come 
there to preach for them, and, under their auspices, in the county. 
Before I returned with Bro. Lanphear, at that time, I agreed to come 
to Somerset permanently. 

" Sometime about the close of September I moved to Somerset — 
with wife and one child, and commenced my labors there. I preached 
several Sundays in the month to the church in the town, and also, at 
stated times, at other places in the county — Turkeyfoot, Berlin, Shade 
— and irregularly also at several other places, as Laurel Hill, Stoys 
town, Centreville, 'on the Ridge,' at Meyers' Mills [now Meyersdale], 
and at other places. Outside of the town I frequently preached in 
German. I found a very cordial reception among the ' German 
brethren.' I preached among them a good deal — in every one of their 
meeting-houses in the county but one. 

" The church at Somerset was in good condition when I came there. 
There were a good number c f excellent men and women in it, intelli- 
gent, earnest in the cause and the faith, full of zeal, well versed in the 
Scriptures, attentive to one another, pious, zealous in every good work, 
and eager for the triumph of the truth. I never met a church or a 
body of Christian brethren that made a better impression on me. They 
gave me the most cordial and active support, in all my labors. I dare 
not venture to name these excellent brethren and sisters; I could not 
consent with myself to omit one. But the memory of them, and the 
affection for them, is as bright and precious to me to-day as thirty years 
ago. Yes, grand men and women these were — many of them gone, a 
good number of them yet living. Somerset will always be a spot of 
pure, radiant light with me in my history. 

"It was with me a period of very earnest labor. I have never in 
my life applied myself with more diligence to the study of the Word 
of God in preparing for my preaching, than while at Somerset. Every 
day was a day of toil with me. And I was young, fresh and full of 
zeal. I had the satisfaction of seeing the work of the Lord prosper 
while there. There were constant additions to the church. We usually 
had four protracted meetings a year — generally conducted by myself 
alone. The number of additions during these meetings was generally 
from ten to fourteen, sometimes more. There were usually about fifty 
baptized at Somerset and neighborhood during the year. Winter and 
summer alike, the converts at the evening meetings were usually bap- 



PASTORS. 



275 



tized the same night. Bro. Samuel Huston, and sometimes Bro. 
Bevins, did the baptizing. 

" The church prospered from year to year. 

"My preaching at the other points in the county, as at Berlin, 
Turkeyfoot, etc., was principally at the good will of the church at 
Somerset. These places paid something, but by no means for the full 
proportion of my time. My going to these stations was an act of gen- 
erosity, largely on the part of the Somerset brethren. 

" During my stay at Somerset, the church at Berlin was founded 
and the meeting-house bought.* We had a number of excellent Dis- 
ciples there, and several were added by baptism— some during a visit 
of Bro. I. Errett, in April, 1852, who preached at Somerset, and for a 
number of days at Berlin. 

" During the second year of my stay at Somerset, at the instance 
of the brethren there, I began to publish The Disciple, for the first year 
a monthly, for the second year a semi-monthly. It continued two 
years, and had a circulation of about 800. I have the assurance that 
much good was accomplished by it. A year before I left Somerset the 
Sower was established at Pittsburgh. The brethren at Somerset were 
among those who urged this measure. It was a large weekly. The 
editors were W. W. Eaton, who was brought from New Brunswick for 
this purpose, W. J. Pettigrew and myself. The largest amount, by far, 
of the original matter was furnished by myself. It was a heavy task 
for me, especially so with all my other burdens. My second child, 
Willie, had fallen sick with the malady which resulted in his lameness 
for life, and for many months I had to give daily attention to him my- 
self—twice applying bandages, etc., etc., to say nothing ot the weight 
of sorrow the mind and heart had to bear. Besides, I was then en- 
gaged also in conducting a school, the Somerset Collegiate Institute, 
founded two years before I left Somerset. Th s I had to do to help me 
financially, as my salary was small, and I had very heavy burdens to 
bear financially. The ' Institute ' was quite a success, and received a 
good support from the town and vicinity, from the country and from 
other pqrts of the State ; a few came from other States. 

"The church was always liberal; their intelligence and zeal made 
them so. The Bible Union enterprise came before the people during 
my first years at Somerset, and the church entered heartily into it. One 
of their agents, during a single visit of a few days, received subscrip- 

* Later it went down and the house was sold. There is, however, a church 
there now, as already noted. — P. V. 



276 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

tions to the Union of $600. Every call made upon the brethren, that 
was at all worthy, was generously met. 

•• The church of Somerset was, during those years, the appointed 
agent of the churches of Pennsylvania for the State Mission, and the 
work was well attended to, and prospered. I was Corresponding Sec- 
retary most of the time. On several occasions the church allowed me 
to take several weeks at a time to canvass the State in the interest of 
this Mission. I was absent at one time five weeks on such a tour to the 
northeastern part of the State, visiting particularly Center, Clinton and 
Bradford counties. The State Meeting was several times held at Som- 
erset, and very numerously attended. It was a period of marked re- 
ligious activity and enthusiasm. 

" When I came to Somerset there was considerable religious hos- 
tility to us, on the part of the denominations. This became more in- 
tense. We were obliged, and altogether ready and willing, to enter 
into the warfare, both defensively and offensively ; the former first, and 
then, by natural consequence, the latter. When I left, much of this 
hostility had passed away, and the relations I enjoyed with some of the 
other preachers of the place were altogether pleasant. The very gen- 
erous, hearty letter of esteem and good wishes and appreciation handed 
to me, and so largely signed by the citizens, on my leaving, has 
attached to it the names of the resident preachers of the other churches 
of Somerset. I shall always cherish this letter as a precious token and 
memory of my Somerset life. 

" Three children were born to me while there — Willie, Louise and 
Charlie, all living. My children are all good Christians, all active in 
church. Two — Willie and Freddie — are preachers ; and I have two 
other preachers as sons-in-law. 

" It would be a very precious privilege with me to be permitted to 
visit and see Somerset once more, and those yet there whom I once 
knew and loved so well. I hope I may yet be permitted to enjoy such 
a delight." 

In a German letter of April, 1884, President Loos 
writes : ' ' Meirie Erinnerungen von Somerset sind mir 
immer wie ein schoner Fruhlingstag im Geddchtniss ge- 
blieben. Nur Gutes bleibt mir von meinem Wirken und 
meiner Erf aiming von dort zuriick." That is, "My 
recollections of Somerset have ever remained in my 
mind like a beautiful day in Spring-time. Of my labors 



PASTORS. 277 

and experience there, there abides with me nothing but 
what is good." A still earlier letter glows with equal 
rapture over the place and its people and alludes to the 
death of Judge Black as — " One of the noblest has just 
passed away in the triumphs of the Christian faith, and 
in his death has honored the faith he cherished all his 
eventful life." 

L. R. Norton, who was reared about Connellsville, 
Pennsylvania, and who at this writing is somewhere in 
Colorado for the benefit of his health, spent most of 
his time here in evangelizing, but served one year as 
pastor. Lack of fuller data must confine this notice to 
extracts from two letters. 

" Windsor Hotel, Chicago, 111., ^ 
"August 2, 1883. j 

" Dear Bro. Vogel : — My first visit to Somerset was to attend 
a State Missionary Meeting in 1850. There were present at that 
meeting, brethren A. Campbell, Samuel Church (I think), Wm. J. 
Pettigrew, Wesley Lanphear, J. D. Benedict, Jas. B. Pyatt, Charles D, 
Hurlbutt, etc., etc. ; many of whom have finished their cou'se. It was 
a delightful meeting. 

"While I lived in Somerset — from 1854 to 1858 — I did a large 
share of missionary work, traveling, generally on horseback, as far as 
to Pine Flat northward, and to Barton, Maryland, and Bruceton, Vir- 
ginia, southward, over rough, rocky roads and mountain ranges, 
winter and summer. It was hard work ; yet I have now no pleasanter 
memories than those that cluster around these missionary tours. My 
helpers and coadjutors were Jacob Schell, Samuel Huston, Edward 
Bevins, Jas. B. Pyatt, Wm. Lloyd, J. Z. Taylor, and others. 

" Our work, too, was successful. I often meet with persons in the 
West, who, as children, were brought into the churches in Western 
Pennsylvania through our labors. The brethren of that district made 
a great mistake in suffering the mission work to cease. I trust it may 
be greatly revived at your present meeting. I can not be with you in 
person, but, as ' Auntie Graft ' used to say, ' I will be with you in the 
proper sense of the word.' ... I am still fighting the good fight, 
and hope to come off more than conqueror through Christ." 



278 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

From Monroe, Wisconsin, August 21, 1883, ne 
writes : 

" In the fall of 1854, in the month of September, I removed from 
Connellsville to Somerset, at the earnest solicitation of Bro. C. L. 
Loos, then pastor of the church, and principal of an academy. I had 
then been preaching about a year. My field of labor during two years 
— till October, 1856 — was mainly in Somerset and Cambria counties. I 
preached twice a month at Johnstown, once a month at Shade, and 
once at Turkeyfoot, besides sundry other places as I passed back 
and forth. During these years I studied Greek and Latin, etc., etc., 
with Bro. Loos. Young and inexperienced as I was, and poor as was 
my preaching, my work was quite successful. During that time I 
persuaded the brethren at Shade to build a new house, and assisted in 
raising the funds ; and, when completed, preached the first sermon in 
it. We did not then call it dedicating the house. 

"About the first of October, 1856, Bro. Loos went to Cincinnati, 
and I was employed to preach for the church in Somerset at a salary of 
$500, or at that rate, for I think I did not give them my full time. (Un- 
fortunately, I did not then know the value of keeping dates, etc.) I 
continued to preach for them one year, and then was employed by the 
District Missionary Board to travel in Somerset and Cambria, passing 
over occasionally into Indiana county and into Maryland and Virginia. 
My co-laborers in this were J. B. Pyatt, Wm. Lloyd, J. Z. Taylor and 
Edward Bevins. In this mission work we were also assisted by Jacob 
and Henry Schell, Dr. Hartzell and others, and met with success every- 
where. 

" Daring my ministry in the Somerset church the elders were Jno. 
J. Schell, Edward Bevins, Samuel Huston and myself. Am not able to 
name all the deacons. Samuel Stahl was the treasurer and was always 
prompt in his payments. During my stay there (I can not give the 
dates) the Lord took from us Brethren Samuel Huston, Henry Schell, 
Sr., and Samuel Stahl, all good and true men. I officiated at their 
funerals with sadness and sorrow. Among the prominent members of 
the church at that time were Judge Black and wife (yesterday's mail 
brought us the news of the death of the Judge, for whom I had always 
had the highest regard), Mr. and Mrs. Postlethwaite, Ross Forward, 
Judge Kimmell and their wives, Uncle and Auntie Graft, Mary Ogle, 
Emily Ogle, Harriet Ogle, the Stuart family, and many others. Bro. 
Colborn came there not long before I left — which was in November, 
1858. 



PASTORS. 



279 



" Whilst I was preaching for the church we had about fifty addi- 
tions, most of them children of the church. About forty came in at a 
meeting in which we were assisted by W. T. Moore, now of London. 
When I closed my ministry they numbered two hundred and fifty, and, 
taken all in all, about the best two hundred and fifty Disciples I ever 
knew. As indicating my feelings at the time, I make the following ex- 
tract from my journal: ' Monday, Nov. 1, 1858.— I preached yesterday 
morning on the judgment, and last night from Joshua xxiv. 15, 
"Choose you this day whom ye will serve," etc. I spoke last night 
with great ease and freedom of thought ; but felt very bad at the close, 
as it may be the last time I will preach here forever. I leave Somerset 
with very great reluctance, and would not do so but that my circum- 
stances seem to require it. But it is a great satisfaction to feel that I 
am not driven away, but depart with the good will and best wishes of 
the church. The four years we have spent here have been, I think, the 
happiest of my life, and the most useful. Good-bye, old Somerset. 
Farewell to her glorious mountains, her salubrious climate, her social 
population, and last and dearest of all, to the beloved brethren and 
sisters. You will ever live in my affection. Though absent in body, I 
will often be present with you in spirit — "in the proper sense of the 
word," as dear old Auntie Graft says. Once more adieu.' 

" And to-day I look back on those four years of hard toil with un- 
alloyed pleasure. Neither have 1 changed my mind as to the compara- 
tive status of the Somerset church as it then was." 

Succeeding Norton's pastorate there was an interreg- 
num of over six years, during which time the elders 
and transient evangelists ministered to the church. 
This was followed by — 

L. Southmayd, who served the church five months 
in the first half of 1865. He was born in Stowe, then 
Portage, now Summit county, Ohio, December 19, 
1826. In addition to training in the common and 
select schools of that region, he took part of the course 
at Hiram College. Converted at Stowe, he spent five 
years of life at Newton Falls, Ohio, two at Pompey, 
New York, three as missionary in Pennsylvania, eight 
years in Steubenville, Ohio, five years in Mt. Vernon, 



28o TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

Ohio, three years at Stowe, and two at Cuyahoga 
Falls. For some years he has been living at his home 
in Akron, Ohio, and has preached for surrounding con- 
gregations. During this time he has also visited in the 
Western, Southern, Middle, and Eastern States, as 
well as Canada, New Brunswick, Prince Edward 
Island, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. In a letter of De- 
cember 7, 1885, he says: 

" I went to Somerset, taking my wife with me, January 6, 1865. I 
was at that time in the employ of the Pennsylvania State Missionary 
Society, having labored for them something over a year. Somerset was 
without a preacher at the time, and requested that I should make my 
home there, preach for them occasionally, and evangelize for awhile in 
Somerset county. 

" We held a meeting there at that time of some ten days, closing 
it on the 17th of January with two baptisms. We then went to a place 
near by, called Laurel Hill, spoke four times in the school-house, and 
immersed two. We remained with the church at Somerset until June 
15th of the same year, preaching a few discourses during the time at 
Buckstown, Centreville and Laurel Hill. The greater portion of my 
time for the five months was with the church in Somerset. The officers, 
as I remember them, were J. J. Schell and Edward Bevins, elders, and 
John F. Kantner and Henry F. Schell, deacons. They had a good 
Sunday-school, kept up a prayer-meeting, and their Lord's day meetings 
were well attended. It was during that spring that Abraham Lincoln 
was assassinated. The memorial services were held in our house, and 
it fell to my lot to deliver the address. The different ministers of the 
place, with their congregations, were present, filling the house to its ut- 
most capacity. The house was appropriately draped in mourning, and 
the address was congratulated. 

"The passage of twenty years has faded many things from my 
memory, but I think there were five persons gathered into the fold by 
my labors in the county." 

James Darsie was sketched under Evangelists, in 
Chapter XV. , from notes dictated by himself. Bro. L. 
P. Streator, however, writes to add that — 



PASTORS. 28l 

" Darsie, soon after his marriage, settled on the Youghiogheny, 
not far from Perryopolis, and maintained himself by working in a spade 
and shovel lactory, in company with Bro. Whitsett, and contributed 
largely by preaching to prepare the way for the establishment of 
churches at Bethel, Pennsville, etc." 

Of his coming to Somerset, first and last, Darsie 
writes : 

"The church was at that time (1836) in a flourishing condition, 
under the^wise counsel of Chauncey Forward, Wm. H. Postlethwaite 
and Samuel Huston. . . . After I married and settled in Fayette 
county, Pennsylvania, I continued to visit the brethren in Somerset oc- 
casionally, at annual missionary meetings, and always was warmly re- 
ceived and kindly treated by all. When Bro. Loos became the pastor 
of the church I was preaching at Connellsville. We frequently ex- 
changed and helped each other at protracted meetings, which resulted 
in great good to the cause. I moved to Illinois in the spring of 1864, 
and received a call from the church in Somerset in the fall of 1865, 
where I arrived November 16th, and labored for the church till the is\. 
of January, 1870. We never enjoyed ourselves better, or were more 
successful in the work of the Lord, than during our stay with the dear 
brethren of Somerset. During our labors in the town of Somerset and 
at various mission points throughout the county there were large acces- 
sions to the church. When we left, the church in the town of Somer- 
set numbered in the neighborhood of three hundred members, and the 
other points were in a prosperous condition. My wife always regretted 
that we left so promising a field of labor. ... I will ever hold in 
grateful remembrance the uniform kindness of the beloved Disciples of 
the Somerset church. They always treated me with kindness and gen- 
erous liberality, for which I shall ever cherish gratitude." 

When Bro. Darsie became pastor of the church, 
there were in addition to the other Lord's day services, 
a Sunday-school in the forenoon and a Bible class in 
the afternoon. This Bible class was by him transferred 
to a week-day evening, and became a great power for 
good. His successful ingathering of souls is indicated 
in the last chapter on Evangelists. Among the older 
members he is regarded as the best pastor Somerset 
ever had. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



PASTORS — CONTINUED. 



Peter Vogel 's first Somerset pastorate began with 
June 4, 1870, and ended with September 25, 1871. He 
came here, on the recommendation of Isaac Errett, 
from Du Quoin, Illinois, whence so late as September 
14, 1875, R. A. Wheatley wrote : 

" We are satisfied that our great mistake was in letting you go. 
. . . I have heard scores of the members and also many outsiders 
express themselves as liking you better than any one that we had to 
work for us since we have had an existence." 



The list of Somerset members handed to Vogel 
numbered two hundred and forty-six names. Jacob 
Schell and Ed. Bevins were the elders, and A. T. 
Ankeny was superintendent of the Sunday-school. The 
work was considerably hindered by the belief that the 
meeting-house had become unsafe for occupancy. The 
services on the second Sunday were held in the Reformed 
Church, then in the Court-house, most of the winter 
again in the partially repaired house, which was torn 
down the following spring and the Court-house again 
resorted to. The prayer-meetings were held in the 



282 



PASTORS CONTINUED. 283 

Academy building, the lower part of which served as 
parsonage, and is the natal spot of Ella K. Vogel, the 
oldest daughter. The unfitness of the Court-house for 
winter service was the cause of Vogel's leaving for 
Lanark, Illinois, against the wishes of all but three 
members. This unsolicited communication followed 
him : 

" At a meeting held in the Court-house at Somerset, Pennsylvania, on 
the eve of the 1st of October, 1871, the following preamble and resolu- 
tions were adopted by the Disciples of Christ of said place : 

" 'Whereas, Our beloved brother, Peter Vogel, has just left us to 
labor in another part of God's vineyard, it is, therefore, 

" ' Resolved, 1st. That we part with him with regret. 

' ' ' 2nd. That we recognize in him a devoted brother and an efficient 
minister of the gospel of Christ. 

" ' 3d. That we bid him God-speed in his work and labor of love, 
and abundant success in turning sinners to Christ and in building up 
the congregation where he has gone to labor.' 

" We certify the above extract. 

" Henry F. Schell, \ y] , „ 
" David Husband, / JMaers - 

At the new election of elders, July 24, 1870, Vogel 
was chosen, along with Schell and Husband, and or- 
dained to that office on October 9th following. On his 
arrival at Somerset, the Sunday-school was found 
to be of the nature of a Bible-class, and was using 
the old hymn-book ; and its contributions were merely 
nominal. It was reorganized ; a Sunday-school paper, 
The Sower, introduced ; class and other records kept — 
on a new plan by him devised, and since adopted 
by other denominations in the State ; more money 
raised each Sunday than before in a whole quarter ; a 
Sunday-school song-book, " Fresh Laurels," intro- 
duced ; and the first infant-class in the town started, 
taught by Vogel because no one else believed it could 



284 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

be made a success. It not only became the largest 
class in the school, but to-day all its members are in the 
church and most of them active workers. The Chris- 
tian Standard was largely introduced into families, and 
the work of missions received active support. During 
the winter and spring a Saturday evening course of lec- 
tures on Acts of Apostles was delivered, and on Sun- 
day forenoon a similar series on Leviticus, while Sunday 
evening was devoted to promiscuous topics. Part of 
the diary for Sunday, January 1, 1871, reads : 

" Preached at 10:30 A. m. a New Year's sermon, reviewing the past 
year's occurrences in the religious world, and matters having such a 
bearing. Gave a statement of my past year's labors : over 130 sermons 
preached, 52 additions gained ^6 of these by assistance), one oral debate 
held, besides much other work. Reviewed the history of this church 
since my arrival. Made inquiries into individual piety, etc. Proposed 
work for the year. Did not attend Sunday-school, because Mrs. V. was 
sick. Preached against the dance at night. In our forenoon meeting 
we took up a collection of $6.72 for Sunday-school papers." 

Most of the additions mentioned were had before 
coming to Somerset. Converts were few till towards 
the last of his stay, when, without any effort, they 
came at all times of the week asking immediate bap- 
tism. During that stay several private classes in Ger- 
man were taught, and also several meetings were held 
for neighboring churches. 

E. L. Allen went from York State to attend the 
Bible College in Kentucky University, and from there 
came to Somerset, preaching at Confluence on the way. 
He arrived here in January, 1872, and remained six 
months. There was no formal engagement beyond 
that he should receive whatever the regular Lord's day 
contributions would bring. It was during his stay that 
the town was swept by one of the destructive fires al- 



PASTORS — CONTINUED. 285 

ready mentioned. Part of his time was irregularly given 
to other points in the county. He married and settled 
near Stoystown, and evangelized in the county. On 
December 4, 1873, he called for his certificate of mem- 
bership from the Somerset Church, and is now some- 
where in the West. 

L. F. Bittle> now of Throopsville, New York, and 
who is not in the habit of reporting his meetings and 
movements in public prints, is modest enough to desire 
no mention in this place, and furnished no material for 
it. Inasmuch, however, as the life he has chosen is a 
public one, he must accord to the public the right 
which is here partially claimed. He belongs not only 
to the public, but especially to Pennsylvania, having 
been born near Philadelphia, of Baptist parents, early 
in the thirties. He was converted under L. B. Hyatt, 
at Lockhaven, while teaching school. Not a college 
graduate, he is yet said to be a fine Latin, Greek and 
Hebrew scholar, and lives among books. His delivery 
is somewhat wanting in force and fire, but his sermons 
have excellent finish and are models of good English. 
After having served Painesville and Mt. Vernon, Ohio, 
he came to Somerset in September, 1872, and stayed 
till December, 1878, serving this church over six years. 
While here he held several successful protracted meet- 
ings, notably the one beginning February 13th of the 
Centennial year, and resulting in near fifty additions. 
It was while here that he wrote those Review letters, 
signed B. F. Leonard, which made such a stir at the 
time. 

He belongs to the conservative school among the 
Disciples, and during his stay cast the church in that 
mold, and that all the more easily because some of its 



286 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



prominent members were decidedly of that turn. As 
Bittle's pastorate covered most of the period when M. 
L. Streator was State Evangelist, so much of the lat- 
ter's unpublished report as concerns Somerset is here 
given : 





1S71 


1872 


1873 


1874 


1875 


1876 




Church Membership 


231 

3 
10 


198 
40 
3 

10 
100 


200 

30 
2 

20 
100 


200 
8 
2 


225 
10 


230 

50 








No S. S. Children 

Sisters' Work 


* 92 

$ 5 00 

800 00 

40 00 

30 00 

200 00 


100 


100 


100 


Regular Preaching 

Transient Preaching. 


$200 00 

100 00 

25 00 

75 00 

150 00 

30 


$320 00 
50 00 


$800 00 


$600 00 
100 00 


$600 00 




80 53 

3,600 00 

100 00 










2,500 00 
100 00 


500 00 
50 00 




Paid for Sunday-school ... 
Sunday-sch'l papers taken 
Sunday-sch'l for Missions. 
Incidental Expenses 


$ 49 5o 
35 


100 00 




7 00 
100 00 






100 00 


75 00 


100 00 


150 00' 100 00 



These reports were made in September, and, of 
course, closed the month before. This needs to be ob- 
served to make the additions of 1871 harmonize with 
statements made earlier. In the membership reported 
for each year it is also to be borne in mind that this 
church only reports such as are clearly entitled to 
standing in the church. Nor is the lack of contribu- 
tions for missions in the latter years wholly due to con- 
servative views, for it is readily seen that the church 
was carrying heavy burdens in the building line. 

As already said, Mr. Bittle is conservative. While 
he holds that ' ' there are in all religions, the Christian 
not excepted, general rules the application of which to 
special cases is left to man's common sense," he yet 
regards "the doctrine of Christ" as "a system of 
special precepts relating to the various departments of 
Christian duty." Hence he does not look upon such 
things as missionary societies with any favor, and re- 



PASTORS CONTINUED. 287 

gards them as "but the late invention of an indolent 
and apostate Israel," which have "no place in the 
work of the true Church." See the Octograph for Jan- 
uary 15, 1887. 

W. H. Woolery, after an interregnum of one year, 
succeeded Bittle. The difference between the two men 
has been thus expressed by one who thoroughly sym- 
pathizes with Woolery's methods : " When he came to 
Somerset he found a noble church membership standing 
with their backs to the progress of the age, looking 
back into the past at their own shadow. By preaching 
missions as one of the main duties of the church, the 
church was turned around, and is now as good a church 
as is found in the State of Pennsylvania." 

Prof. Woolery was born in Harrison county, Ken- 
tucky, October 26, 1850. On his father's side his an- 
cestors were German ; on his mother's, Scotch. His 
mother's maiden name was Cleveland, aud it is thought 
by some of the family, who have given the subject 
more attention than it deserves, that a relationship can 
be traced to "Cousin Grover." 

The family had only a few books, but for the most 
part good ones. Young Woolery read with great 
avidity Alexander Campbell's works, and knew our 
history, both of men and churches, from the beginning. 
As early as ten years of age he had determined to be 
a preacher. He joined the church at eighteen. Up to 
this time he had gone to school most of the time to a 
very moral and scholarly teacher named Calvin. Under 
him he developed a strong liking for history and gram- 
mar. Afterwards he attended a select school, taught 
by a University student named Forsyth, and made con- 
siderable progress in mathematics, and Latin and English 



288 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

literature. After being in Kentucky University a 
year and a half, he came to Bethany College in Sep- 
tember, 1873, and graduated in 1876, having been six 
years in high school and college altogether. He grad- 
uated with high grade. 

After graduating he settled, in August, 1876, with 
the church in Pompey, New York. In October of that 
year he was married to Miss Linnie Kirk, of Flushing, 
Ohio — a lady who, on account of agreeableness of dis- 
position and good sense, has always been the greatest 
source, he thinks, of whatever popularity he has en- 
joyed. Added to other accomplishments, she is a fine 
singer. The church in Pompey being composed of the 
most intelligent people which Mr. Woolery had ever 
met, by appreciative listening made a demand on him 
for the best preaching he could do, and this stimulus 
led him to a definite plan of reading and study. From 
this church he was called to preach for the church at 
Hopedale, Ohio. His preaching there before the citi- 
zens and students of Hopedale College made such an 
impression that it will be long remembered. He moved 
to Somerset, Pennsylvania, December 19, 1879, an ^ 
delivered his first sermon here December 21, 1879, on 
Hebrews vii. 25. He found the church with a beautiful 
house of worship, and an earnest, intelligent member- 
ship, but needing to be led into full sympathy with the 
great body of our people in practical activity, and 
especially in missionary work. To turn it into harmony 
with the progress making elsewhere, he contributed 
what he could, and was successful in the results that 
followed his preaching. He adopted the plan of preach- 
ing on the great themes of the Bible in the morning to 
the membership, and in the evening making the ser- 



PASTORS — CONTINUED. 289 

mon, on current events, live and fresh, and almost as 
free in its treatment as the leader in a religious paper. 
The house was crowded with young people, especially 
at night. About fifty persons were added to the mem- 
bership during his pastorate. 

One incident happened in the county which must 
be related. A certain " Campbellite killer" named 
Smithson, a Methodist Episcopal presiding elder from 
the West, was announced in the Somerset papers to 
deliver two lectures on baptism, in one of the villages 
of the county, Confluence. Being our only preacher 
in the county (perhaps with one exception), the few 
members at Confluence requested him to come and hear 
and reply. He went, and on reaching the house found 
that Mr. Smithson had just begun. He had a very 
large audience, and not knowing that there would be 
any reply, made a great many rash statements. 
Among these, he said he found that Matthew in 
writing his gospel in Hebrew had used the word for 
baptize, tseva, to describe the falling of the woman's 
tears when she moistened Jesus' feet with tears. 
This he pretended to quote from the original, 
not suspecting that any one would be able to correct 
him or expose him. It seemed to settle the question, 
for if the word was applied to a moistening or the fall- 
ing of a tear, of course it did not mean to immerse. 
The people went to their homes talking about it, and 
when a reply was announced the interest centered al- 
most altogether on this new and decisive point. The 
people came in great numbers, to see what would or 
could be done about it. Mr. Woolery said, "Admitting 
that Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrew, no man in 
the world to-day has a copy of it, nor has any maa 



29O TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

seen a copy of it for 1,500 years, as it has been lost! 
It can not, therefore, be quoted. And, besides, the 
incident alluded to is not in Matthew, but in Luke." 
The effect of the exposure was wonderful. It was like 
a stroke of lightning from a clear sky. And Mr. 
Smithson had to make another appointment, and come 
back and patch up his tattered arguments. 

Since leaving college Mr. Woolery has paid special 
attention to Old Testament study. He has been pro- 
nounced by competent authority (President Pendleton) 
to be the best teacher of Hebrew in our Church. He 
has made a careful study of the rise and progress of the 
Higher Criticism of the Old Testament. On account 
of his line of work he was called to the Chair of Latin 
and Hebrew in Bethany College, in September, 1882. 
He has taken Pres. Pendleton's studies since the latter's 
resignation. Of his activity in another direction a 
communication to the Apostolic Guide of March 4, 
1887, speaks thus : 

"Prof. W. H. Woolery preaches for th- church at Bethany. He 
has been preaching sermons this winter that for breadth of reading, 
scriptural exposition, depth of insight, rich suggestiveness and practical 
application to spiritual living have not been excelled here for twenty- 
five years. Students and citizens alike agree that it is the best preach- 
ing they ever heard. His sermon lately in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, by invitation of its pastor, before a large audience, on ' The 
Man Jesus Christ,' will long be remembered as one of the greatest 
sermons ever heard in Bethany." 

Peter Vogel was born September 4, 1841, in Butler 
county, Pennsylvania, on the Freeport Road, seven 
miles south of Butler. His father, Albin Vogel, a fine 
Latin scholar, at the age of sixteen came from Bischofs- 
heim, a third-class city on the Tauber, in Baden, Ger- 
many, where the grandfather, Tobias Vogel, had to 



PASTORS CONTINUED. 2gi 

leave in 1831 because of active Republicanism; and 
his mother, Maria Ursula Flick, came in 1835 or '6 from 
Schweikofen, of Rhenish Bavaria. When the boy was 
four and a half years old his father died, and some two 
years later he came under the rule of a stepfather named 
Joseph Eberle. Reared in a German neighborhood, he 
learned no English till in his teens, and then but little. 
His pious mother not only taught him to read and write 
German earlier than he can recollect, but so instructed 
him in the articles of faith that at seven years of age he 
knew the catechism by heart, except the chapters on 
Holy Orders and Matrimony. All his people were and 
are Roman Catholics. With the priesthood in view, he 
spent part of the twelfth year with Priest Constantenick, 
of Summit (then Clearfield) township, committing the 
Latin mass service in three days ; but the jealousy of 
the stepfather, who did not wish to see his own sons 
surpassed, defeated the cherished purpose before college 
was reached. In 1854 the family moved near Kickapoo, 
Peoria county, Illinois. Serving various Protestant 
farmers most of the time, Vogel first saw a Bible in his 
seventeenth year, and in his eighteenth year, while 
working for farmer Vancil, of Orange Prairie, he be- 
came satisfied, from such passages as I. Tim. iv. 1-5, 
that Catholicism is an apostasy. On July 4, 1859, ne 
cast his lot with the Disciples of Christ, under the 
preaching of Mr. Neville, and was by him immersed 
on the next day. His relatives were so anxious to re- 
store this wanderer to his old paths that they made 
various forcible attempts on his liberty, which, in one 
instance, was only maintained by timely help and after- 
wards preserved by respect for carnal weapons. 

The following September he entered the preparatory 



292 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

department of Eureka, Illinois, College, where he was 
graduated in 1866, in full course, under the presidency 
of H. W. Everest, along with W. W. W. Jones, State 
Superintendent of Instruction of Nebraska, and Prof. 
B. J. Radford, now editor of the Disciple. In 1876 
his Alma Mater tendered him the Chair of Greek and 
Modern Languages, and still earlier a Kentucky college 
offered him the Chair of Mathematics, neither of which 
positions, by reason of other engagements, was he 
able to accept. 

On October 11, 1866, he was married to Miss Maud 
Dinsmore, of New Castle, Pennsylvania, and has five 
children on earth and three in heaven — a little boy in 
either world. 

Having been ordained as evangelist April 24, 1864, 
he gave himself, after graduation, unreservedly to the 
ministry of the Word, serving sundry churches as pas- 
tor in Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Ohio and Pennsyl- 
vania. Refusing a number of city calls, he has preferred 
to work in smaller towns, believing that he could thus 
do more for the Master. The extremes of his pastor- 
ates have run from one hundred and eight additions in 
a single year down to four or five. By reaching out into 
adjoining neighborhoods he has planted new congrega- 
tions and reestablished old ones to the number of thir- 
teen. His salaries have varied from twelve hundred 
dollars to six hundred, he having voluntarily laid aside 
the former for the good he could do under the latter. 
Now, however, he feels the necessity of providing a 
home for old age and looking to the education of his 
children. His aggressive labors brought occasions for 
five public discussions of religious questions. One 
of these discussions, and that on the Sabbath question,. 



PASTORS — CONTINUED. 293 

has been put in print, and thus has saved numerous in- 
dividuals and congregations from destruction by heresy. 
This discussion has been highly complimented by the 
public prints as scholarly and thorough. 

Vogel's second pastorate at Somerset began with 
April, 1883. Though but recently called to remain till 
April, 1888, he has resigned, to take effect with the end 
of August, 1887. These have been busy years both 
with tongue and pen. Besides preaching regularly at 
home, several protracted meetings have been held for 
other churches, especially in the capacity of District 
Evangelist. Weak neighboring churches have been 
strengthened by settling difficulties, assisting them in 
raising money, helping them in preaching, and teaching 
their young people in song service. Young men, par- 
ticularly such as looked toward the ministry, have been 
helped in special studies. The relation with other de- 
nominations has been improved, a friendly ministerial 
association has been profitably formed, and for several 
years German preaching has been regularly furnished 
for one of these denominations, the Reformed, on stated 
special occasions. Also various individual Disciples, 
ministers and congregations, at a distance have been 
aided by correspondence in the settlement of difficul- 
ties, in critical investigations, and even in the prepara- 
tion of lectures. Then there was the necessary research 
for, and the preparation of, this history — a task by no 
means easy, because of the lapse of time and the de- 
struction of documents and records by fire. Moreover, 
a course of Sunday evening lectures on God's covenant 
dealings with man in Old Testament times, begun last 
fall and continued through the winter, and now a similar 
treatment of the New Testament, has required more 



294 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

than ordinary preparation ; and this the more since due 
regard was and is paid to the underlying philosophy. 

Amid such multiplied labors pastoral visitation has 
necessarily been reduced to its minimum. Nevertheless, 
in this time the Somerset church has had nearly one hun- 
dred and fifty additions (over ninety of these in two 
protracted meetings by that prince of evangelists, A. P. 
Cobb), and it has been declared by its senior elder, 
Henry F. Schell, to have reached its highest spiritual 
condition in his forty-five years' personal knowledge of 
its history. Missionary and other enterprises have been 
helped by the church as never before, and a parsonage 
has been built. Particularly have the sisters shared in 
these and other good works. 

The same desire for God's word in its purest form, 
which led Mr. Vogel to abandon the traditions of Ro- 
manism for his present faith, also made him hail with 
joy the recent revisions of both the English and the 
German versions of the Bible ; and from the day of 
their first appearance in complete form he has used 
them exclusively in his public and private ministry as 
the best generally acknowledged versions. 



Briefly summing up the several pastorates, we have 
the following facts and reflections : In the thirty-seven 
years since 1850, the church has been served by pastors 
about twenty-one and a half years, and has been with- 
out a pastor about fifteen and a half years. As a rule, 
these pastors have been men of more than ordinary 
ability, insomuch that the Somerset Disciple pulpit has 
become noted in town for its superior talent, and it has 
passed into a public saying, " When you want to hear 
something solid, attend the Baptist Church," as they 



PASTORS CONTINUED. 295 

still persist in calling it. Seven different men, in eight 
pastorates, have served this church as follows : Pres. 
Loos, about five years ; L. R. Norton, one year ; L. 
Southmayd, five months ; Vogel, one year and four 
months ; E. L. Allen, six months ; L. F. Bittle, about 
six years ; Prof. W. H. Woolery, two years and nine 
months, and Vogel again, four years and five months. 
That is, the average pastorate has been a little over two 
years and eight months, and the average interregnum 
about two years and two months. Southmayd's pas- 
torate was the shortest, and L. F. Bittle's the longest. 
Vogel is the only man who has served this church twice ; 
and, if his two pastorates be taken together, they will 
be but a trifle shorter than Bittle's whole time, but, owing 
to the employment of his whole time at Somerset, 
considerably longer in the amount of service rendered. 
The Somerset Disciple Church, though closely fol- 
lowed by the Lutheran, is the first religious body in 
town, both in numbers and in intelligence. And while 
its changes of pastors have not been as frequent as in 
some Disciple churches elsewhere, they have yet been 
too frequent, and the intervals between preachers too 
long, for the prosperity of the other Disciple churches 
in the county, to say nothing of its own highest spirit- 
ual good. It takes a number of years for a preacher to 
have thorough knowledge of a church and its needs, as 
well as for a church to have implicit confidence in his 
spirituality and integrity, which are vastly more than 
talent in importance. A nd it takes still longer for that 
minister to know the surrounding and more or less de- 
pendent churches, and to be so known and trusted by 
them, that he can be of solid value to all. Through 
lack of this, as one reason, the Disciples have been 



296 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



outstripped by originally weaker bodies in their race in 
the county at large, though their present outlook in 
this respect is more hopeful. More difficult to under- 
stand and to serve than that of individual attainment 
in spiritual things is the knowledge of the general spir- 
itual attainment of a church or a county. Of this de- 
partment of a minister's work the average church 
member has not even a faint conception. It belongs to 
the higher burdens and anxieties of pastoral life, of 
which the mere revivalist has not dreamed, and which 
is wholly incapable of transfer to a successor. Hence 
they know not what havoc they create who clamor 
for change on the ground that ' * a new broom sweeps 
clean," being ignorant of the fact that the old one 
knows where the sweeping is needed. 




CHAPTER XXV. 



AT WORK AND AT WORSHIP. 



In both of these departments the chief place must 
still be assigned to the same sex to which this church 
owes its origin. Corresponding to the " Happy Union " 
of the beginning is the present — 

Mite Society, organized during Vogel's first pastor- 
ate. It arose with an emergency and had a definite 
mission from the start. The brick church, dedicated 
in 1844 an d costing about $4,000 was found to be 
no longer serviceable in 1870, and was condemned on 
June 9th of that year, and torn down in June, 187 1. 
The writer's diary of June 5th, 1871, contains the fol- 
lowing : 

" At a called meeting of the members of the church, it was 
"Resolved, I. That we tear down this house and rebuild on the 
same ground. 2. That we build a house with a basement. 3. That 
the finance committee consist of J. J. Schell, Mrs. Mary E. Hurst, and 
Miss Belle Kimmel. 4. That the building committee consist of N. B. 
Snyder, Amos W. Knepper, J. H. Pisel, H. F. Schell, and A. T. 
Ankeny. 5. That the deacons be instructed to secure a place in which 
to meet, till the new house is ready for occupancy." 

Before the work was accomplished various changes 
took place in the committees and various places were 



298 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

selected as sites, till finally the house was put on the 
old lot on the N. W. corner of Turkeyfoot (now South 
Main) street and Patriot street. The house is a two- 
story brick, 40 by 60 feet, costing about $7,000. The 
first meeting in the Lecture Room occurred in Novem- 
ber, 1873, and the first in the Audience Room on the 
last Lord's day of August, 1875. On the latter occasion 
J. Harrison Jones officiated, and raised $1200. 

Seeing the coming need, the sisters organized for 
and remained at the work. A paper written in the 
latter part of the summer of 1874, by Miss Belle Kim- 
mel and through Mr. Bittle presented to the church, 
will afford us light : 

"On the first day of March 1871, some twenty lady members of 
the Christian Church met at the house of Mrs. Sanner and organized 
themselves into a Mite Society, for the purpose of furnishing a new 
meeting-house then in contemplation. It was agreed that each mem- 
ber should pay five cents every week, whether present or absent, and 
should do such work as would be given the Society. This Society has 
continued its meetings up to the present time, except that from May to 
January after the fire there were no meetings, and no work was done. 
In this time we have accumulated the sum of thirteen hundred dollars. 
Two festivals were held in the meantime, which brought us four hundred 
and twenty-five dollars. Sixty-five dollars have been contributed by 
friends of the Society. Five hundred of this has b en laid aside for 
the furnishing of the audience room, when finished ; fifty-five dollars 
has been given towards paying the debt on the house; one hundred 
and forty-three for glass; twelve and a half dollars to Marshall; 
seventy dollars for painting, eighteen lamps and two locks ; ten dol- 
lars to Mr. Huston; to the glazier one hundred dollars; and there 
are three hundred and fifteen dollars and eighty-three cents still in the 
treasury. This will give you some idea of what can be done by united 
effort and the small sum of five cents a week. 

"To-day the Society wish to make this proposition to the church: 
That if every member of the church will become a paying member of 
the Society, and will give us five cents a week (any one may give more 
if he wish), we will undertake to finish the audience room; and if 



AT WORK AND AT WORSHIP. 299 

successful in that, will aiso finish the outside on the same terms. That 
is, these five cents are to be paid regularly every week, so that we may 
always be accumulating a fund with which to work. We can all pay 
this small sum in addition to our other church expenses, without ever 
feeling that we have given anything. It is doubtful if you ever get an- 
other offer to have the house finished at such small cost. Those per- 
sons who accept this offer will give us their names, and we will make a 
report of all moneys paid in and how employed. Those who do not 
wish to meet with the Society at its regular meetings, will be given en- 
velopes marked * Society,' which they can put into the basket with 
their other contributions on Lord's day morning. This will save trouble 
and confusion. We hope you will accept this offer." 

After some discussion all but two persons voted to 
accept this offer, and, notwithstanding the hard times 
due to the terrible fire before spoken of, the house was 
built as already said. From this offer to the comple- 
tion of the house, besides paying largely to supple- 
ment the minister's salary, they paid #1,086.25 ; this is 
not counting #1,551.75 raised, before and after, for the 
same purpose. 

During a visit to Somerset by the writer in January, 
1883, he suggested the propriety of building a parson- 
age. The Society took up this idea and went to work, 
having the house ready for occupancy the following 
fall. It stands on a lot donated for that purpose by 
Judge Black, and, exclusive of donated lot and labor, 
cost about #1,500; the last claim against which was 
liquidated on Thanksgiving, 1886. Since then the 
Society has put into bank #110, waiting for some other 
good work. 

They number at this time thirty-eight regular con- 
tributors, meet every Wednesday night, and many of 
them do paying work for the Society between meetings. 
The present officers are: Miss Sadie H. Picking, Pres. ; 



300 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



Miss Margaret Kimmel, Treas., and Mrs. Mary Con- 
nelly, Sec'y. 

The Christian Women's Board of Missions was organ- 
ized in local branch at Somerset in the summer of 1879. 
It has now forty-six regular members, with Miss Martha 
Knable as President ; Mrs. Sophia Patton as Vice-Presi- 
dent ; Miss Kate Snyder as Secretary, and Miss Lucy 
Picking as Treasurer. Their meetings, formerly on the 
second Lord's day of every month, have recently been 
changed to the first. The exercises of these meetings are 
of a superior character ; their essays especially are all 
worthy of publication. Of about twenty such Auxiliaries 
in this State the one at Somerset stands first ; at least its 
last year's report at the Willsport State Convention was 
$73. 16, which was about $30 more than the Allegheny 
Auxiliary, and about $3 1 more than the one of the Fourth 
Philadelphia Church — the two next highest. The fol- 
lowing is the Secretary's report made at the November 
9th, 1886, District Meeting at Somerset: 

"The Somerset Missionary Society, an Auxiliary to the Pittsburg 
Mission, was organized by Sister King, of Allegheny, in August, 1879. 
Twenty-seven charter members were received at the first meeting. At 
the close of that Missionary year, we had thirty-three members and 
had contributed $39.40. September, 1881, we had thirty-eight mem- 
bers and had contributed $51.37. September, 1882, we had forty-one 
members, and had contributed by money and work $91.20. September, 
1883, the number of members was forty-three, and the amount of contri- 
bution $62.86. September, 1884, number of members forty-six, and 
amount of contribution $93.04, including Life Membership of Mrs. 
Kooser, $25.00, and her Sunday-school class, $8.50. September, 1885, 
number of members forty-six. In June of this year eighteen sisters from 
the church in New Centreville promised to send their contributions to 
this Society. Together we contributed $81.91, including $11.00 to 
Decennial Fund and $3.50 from a Sunday-school class. September, 
1886, we had forty-seven members and Centreville eighteen. Amount 
of contribution, $73.16. 



AT WORK AND AT WORSHIP. 301 

" Looking back over the past seven years, we see that earnest 
and faithful members have been added to our numbers, so that from 
twenty-seven we have now grown to forty-seven members. This gives 
refre.-hing evidence of stability and permanence, and cheers the hearts 
of those who are heartily interested in preaching the gospel 
to every creature. Our monthly meetings have been well attended, 
and have not only proved interesting and instructive, but also a spir- 
itual blessing to ourselves. We have twenty-five subscribers to the 
Missionary Tidings, and in these seven years have given for missions 
$490.54, through the C. W. B. M. 

" Kate Snyder, Sec'y." 

Nor are the older sisters alone interested in mis- 
sions. At the same meeting as above there was also a 
report from The Young Ladies' Christian Missionary 
Society, as follows : 

"The Young Ladies' Christian Missionary Society of this place, 
(Somerset) was organized November 10th, 1882, with eleven members 
enrolled. It was then agreed that we should meet once a month, and 
that every member should pay five cents monthly, whether present or 
absent at such meeting. We number at this time twenty-three mem- 
bers. The money we contribute is sent to our missionaries in India, to 
be used for any purpose they see fit. It was decided by the Society 
that this was the best way to dispose of it, after considering various 
other ways. We have, up to the present time, sent $38.10 for this pur- 
pose. Sydney E. Connelly." 

The present officers of this Society are : Minnie 
Craver, President ; Ella K. Vogel, Secretary, and Edith 
Schell, Treasurer. They meet on the second Tuesday 
night of each month, immediately after the young peo- 
ple's prayer-meeting, and follow the programme of ex- 
ercises published in the Missionary Tidings. 

The Children 's Missionary Band, on the same 9th of 
October, 1886, through little Mary Kooser, made this 
report : 

"The name of the Children's Missionary Band at Somerset is 
" Cheerful Givers" We have been organized lor work more than a 



302 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

year. (They were organized on the last Saturday of October, 1885.) 
Each member gives three cents a month. We have twenty-seven mem- 
bers. Daisy Fleck is President ; Daisy M. Vogel, Secretary, and Clara 
Huston, Treasurer. We have singing and praying with reading and reci- 
tations at our meetings, which we hold the third Sunday of the month in 
the church, and are led by one of the ladies of the Auxiliary Missionary 
Society. The object for which we have contributed our money is to 
build the "Josephine Smith Memorial Chapel" in Japan. We have 
sold twenty shares in the memorial Home at twenty-five cents per share. 
We have on our book for the last year $7.65, besides the money for the 
shares, which was $5.00, making in all $12.65. ^ ae °f tne objects of 
these Bands for children, we are told, is to teach us the value of sys- 
tematic giving, and that even the mites can accomplish great things 
when united. If God so loved us as to give His Son, we ought to be 
very willing to give a little of our time and a little of our means to ac- 
complish His will upon earth. Before Jesus left the disciples he told 
them to teach all nations. 

" ' Our dear Redeemer, loving Friend, 
Oh ! help us to be willing 
To do Thy bidding to the end, 
Thy last command fulfilling.' " 

The present officers of this Band are, Mary Patton, 
President; Clara Huston, Secretary, and Marian Uhl, 
Treasurer. At first the little boys met with these little 
girls in one Band, but afterwards they were separated, 
under the leadership of L. C. Colborn, into a Band of 
their own. Not liking this arrangement , they quit attend- 
ing, and are now beginning to come back to their former 
place. This Mission Band is getting more and more 
into the habit of giving parlor entertainments to raise 
money for missionary purposes. 

The Women's Christian Temperance Unio?i of Somer- 
set derives more than half its members and a propor- 
tionate share of its finest talent from the Disciple 
church. This is saying a great deal, when it is known 
that there are five other denominations here represented 
by churches. Three of the present officers of this 



AT WORK AND AT WORSHIP. 303 

local Union are Disciples, namely, Mrs. M. O. Kooser, 
President ; Mrs. Thomas Jones, Treasurer, and Mrs. 
Jennie Hochstettler, Secretary. And in the county or- 
ganization, where fifteen different lines of work are 
represented, Sister Sophia Patton has charge of the 
Jail and Prison department, and Sister M. O. Kooser 
of the department of Scientific Instruction. 

The Union was organized in June, 1882, and has 
since engineered a vast amount of work, being ably 
seconded by the various resident ministers. When the 
writer first visited Somerset, namely, in 1870, railroads 
being then unknown to the place and the historic stage- 
coach still rolling securely in these mountain defences, 
it was just the thing to land the coming pastor and his 
wife in the parlor adjoining to ''where flowed the 
sparkling bowl" in the most conspicuous part of the 
hotel. Afterwards the bar grew more modest, 
having, perhaps, like sinful Adam, discovered that it was 
naked, and withdrew, first behind green blinds, then to 
back rooms, and even under ground as a fitter place for 
the manufacture of corpses for the grave. In the court 
term for February, 1886, every license was swept from 
town. And at this writing Greek is meeting Greek 
throughout the town in preliminary drill and array for 
the coming May term of court, to decide anew the 
question of license. Like the unclean spirit of Sacred 
Writ, Alcohol, having found the house garnished and 
swept, and having wandered in all sorts of unlawful 
places, is seeking to return with sevenfold malice of 
hell. At that court a professional detective, secured 
by the women in connection with the Law and Order 
League, will unfold a tale which will make some ' ' es- 



304 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



timable" druggists have serious doubts about their 
being of the " elect. " 

While on this question, a page of church-record ia 
the hand- writing of Wm, H. Posthlethwaite, then 
clerk, and fortunately preserved, may here be given : 

" ' At a meeting of the congregation, held on the 29th day of De- 
cember, 1870, W. H. Posthlethwaite presented the following preamble 
and resolution, viz. : 

" ' Whereas, We as a congregation of Christians have been alarmed 
at the spread of the evil of intemperance, and have become fully aware 
of its demoralizing effect upon our congregation and the community 
around us — 

" ' Resolved, That this congregation henceforth set our faces against 
the progress of this desolating vice; that we will use all legitimate 
means to arrest its progress, and that we now determine that any mem- 
ber of the congregation who is known to use intoxicating liquors as a 
beverage shall be publicly reprimanded, and that a second offense shall 
subject the member to expulsion.' 

"The above resolution was objected to by brethren Vogel and H. 
F. Schell, principally on the ground that it might look like adopting a 
Creed — that it looked like legislating for the Church, and that its pas- 
sage might be setting a precedent tending to confusion and disorder. 

"The resolution was held over until January 12th, 1871, when, 
after a free interchange and decided expression of opinion on the sub- 
ject, at the request of H. F. Schell, the passage of the resolution was 
not pressed, and in lieu thereof Elder H. F. Schell put this question to 
the congregation, viz. : 

" ' Is it the sense of this Congregation that it is contrary to the 
teachings of the Bible for any member of the congregation to use in- 
toxicating liquors as a beverage ?' 

"And the congregation, by an almost unanimous vote, decided 
in the affirmative." 

At the Thursday night prayer-meeting of March 
2nd, 1 87 1, Elder Henry F. Schell stated that in " defer- 
ence to the judgment of others he would no longer as- 
sist as lawyer in the presentation to the court of appli- 
cations for liquor-licenses. " And on Sunday, the 24th 



AT WORK AND AT WORSHIP. 3° 5 

of March, 1871, Elder Peter Vogel delivered an after- 
noon lecture on Temperance at the Court House. 
While drunkards had always before this been dealt 
with by the church according to Scripture, the facts 
just recited show that this church took an early public 
stand — the earliest in town — on the temperance ques- 
tion, and is now rejoicing in the harvest from its sow- 
ing. 

The Sunday-school is also largely another department 
of womanly activity, as will be seen from the list of 
present officers and teachers below given. We have 
already seen that this Sunday-school was started by 
women, and is older than the church. The various 
stages of its development are, however, irrecoverably 
lost. Jacob Schell and others were superintendents in 
earlier days. A. T. Ankeny, now of Minneapolis, 
Minn., writes : 

"It is difficult for me to recall dates, but I think I was its superin- 
tendent for a year or two about 1866 or 1867. It was while Bro. Darsie 
was there ; and with his illimitable knowledge of the Bible we lifted 
the school out of a ' rut,' and made its exercises highly interesting and 
of great power for good. We had no ' Lesson Leaves ' then, and each 
teacher was allowed to pursue his own course. But our general exer- 
cises, which lasted about twenty minutes, consisted in grouping the 
general historical incidents of the Bible and reciting them in turns : 
such as repeating in concert the names of the books of the Old and 
New Testaments, the characteristics of each period of history, etc. 
When we came to the New Testament there were ' the facts of the gos- 
pel,' ' the promises,' ' the duties,' and so on. The object was to gather 
all into a compendium properly arranged, and the effect was that the 
scholars and teachers had the whole thing at their tongues' ends, and 
made a highly creditable showing." 

The reorganization of the Sunday-school under 
Vogel's first pastorate has already been sufficiently in- 
dicated. At his departure he left the superintendency 



306 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

in the hands of the Hon. A. J. Colborn, who did effi- 
cient work for several years. Next Ed. M. Schrock 
served a few weeks, then Elder Bittle awhile, and most 
of the time since, L. C. Colborn has superintended the 
school. The present officers and teachers are : L. C. 
Colborn and Dr. H. S. Kimmel, superintendents; 
Florence B. Snyder and Alice Schrock, Secretaries ; 
Joseph Brallier, Treasurer ; Paul Schell, Ed. Kantner, 
and Ernest O. Kooser, Librarians. The nineteen 
teachers are the following : M. J. Pritts of the Bible- 
class ; Mrs. M. O. Kooser of the Boys' Bible-class ; 
Belle Kimmel of the Girls' Bible-class ; Mary Schell, 
May Cunningham, W. H. Hochstettler, Minnie Cra- 
ver, Sarah Kimmel, Fannie Snyder, Lucy Picking, 
Mrs. Minnie Shivler, Mrs. Sue Nichol, Kate Snyder, 
Lizzie Huston, Sydney E. Connelly, Edith Schell, 
Mary Huston, Mrs. Mamie Scull Biesecker, and finally 
Clara Hicks, of the Infant Class. 

The entire present enrollment of the Sunday-school 
is about 220, the average attendance about 130, and the 
average contribution $2.06. 

The International Lesson Series is used, and the 
singing is from Fillmore's Grateful Praise, with organ 
accompaniment. The review is usually prepared and 
conducted by the pastor, and partakes of a black- 
board Bible-reading by classes on the most practical 
thought of the day's lesson. This has not only been 
found profitable, but constantly gains in interest. 

The Young People s Prayer-meeting was started 
during Woolery's pastorate, and has proved to be a real 
blessing to the church. It meets on every Tuesday 
evening, and is generally well attended, having run con- 
siderably over a hundred for some time after the last 



AT WORK AND AT WORSHIP. 307 

protracted meeting, though the present average is con- 
siderably below that figure, yet sufficiently large to 
make a creditable showing, especially as compared 
with other churches of like membership. This prayer- 
meeting is exclusively under the conduct of the 
younger members of the church. A regular pro- 
gramme of topics, with numerous appropriate Scripture 
references, and the designation of a leader for each 
evening, is printed every three months. The young 
sisters are occasionally leaders, and regularly partici- 
pants in some ot the public exercises. These exer- 
cises consist of singing, praying, select readings, reci- 
tations of pertinent verses of Scripture, exhortations, 
and occasional essays, especially by way of monthly 
review of topics. The persons who are to take partic- 
ular parts at the succeeding meeting are designated 
by the leader of the previous week. Regular minutes 
are kept in an appropriate book. 

The General Prayer- Meeting assembles on Thursday 
evening, and is conducted on the same general plan as 
the foregoing, except that no minutes are kept, no pro- 
gramme is printed, and essays are less seldom read. 
The topics, however, are announced a week in advance, 
when the next leader is also appointed. These topics 
are sometimes suggested by some one present, at other 
times the regular Sunday-school lesson for the next 
Lord's day is considered in its devotional aspects, and 
at present the New Testament lessons for the latter half 
of the current year are taken in course. This affords a 
regular line of general study, and yet yields a more 
lively variety than those who have not tried it might 
suppose. Of course the sisters take as free a part in 
the singing and verse-offering as the brethren, while 



3 o8 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



some also lead in prayer as often as called on by the 
leader, and sometimes even a woman's voice is heard 
in exhortation. Some of the members are too old and 
infirm to attend these night meetings, others live at too 
great a distance, while still others do not sufficiently 
"hunger and thirst after righteousness" to find any 
delight in such gatherings. These, however, are so 
far replaced by members of the other prayer-meeting 
as to make the general average of attendance some- 
where near that of the young people's meeting. 

The Lord 's Day Exercises are severely simple. In a 
church that really numbers over three hundred mem- 
bers, though only two hundred and seventy-five are 
reckoned as tolerably faithful, the attendance might be 
better. It is, however, above the usual average of like- 
sized churches elsewhere. Some of the older members 
attend only in the forenoon, and the spiritually defi- 
cient only at night. Country residents, as a rule, 
attend but one service, while in many other instances 
husband and wife, or parents and older children, divide 
the services between themselves on account of the 
smaller children. The hot chase during the week after 
Mammon so tires out some that the Lord must excuse 
them from attention to Him on His day. Besides, Sun- 
day head-aches, and such like, invade even this home of 
health. Surely the Lord will be merciful to such, for 
He was never known to endure weariness or pain ! 

The first thing in the morning service is either a 
resurrection or fellowship hymn ; then a resurrection 
chapter is read by one of the elders, taking the four 
gospels in regular turn, and on a fifth Lord's day in the 
month the eleventh chapter of I. Corinthians. Occa- 
sionally a crucifixion chapter is taken instead. After 



AT WORK AND AT WORSHIP. 30Q 

this the minister ascends the pulpit, announces and 
reads either a resurrection or other Lord's day hymn 
in praise of Christ. After this is sung by the congre- 
gation without organ, a devotional lesson, usually from 
the Psalms, is read, and the audience stands in prayer 
which bears in mind the toils and conflicts of the past 
week, the purpose of the hour, the needs and relations 
of the church, the absent membership, and the coming 
week. This is followed by another hymn of either a 
devotional, penitential, consecrational, or invocatory 
character. The sermon which follows is addressed to 
the membership, and ranges somewhere in the broad 
field of Christian life or duty, or draws inspiration from 
God's providence or promises. Sometimes it is so far 
doctrinal or expository as pressing duty may require. 
In all cases it has a definite aim suggested by the known 
needs of the membership, and varies in length from 
thirty-five to forty-five minutes. The hymn which im- 
mediately follows is sung standing, and, if not always 
suggested by the theme of the sermon, is at least not 
alien to it; and both sermon and hymn give the key- 
note to the succeeding prayer. Then the minister and 
one of the elders attend to the breaking of the loaf and 
the distribution of the cup. Next the collection is taken 
up. For this the membership come with prepared en- 
velopes, having name, date and enclosed amount writ- 
ten on them, and containing the proportionate amount 
of their yearly subscription. A good sister who died 
five years ago is still regularly remembered by a dollar 
bill fresh from the press. The loose change in the 
basket goes into the poor fund. After the collection 
come the announcements ; among these, on the first 
Lord's day in each month, the particular books of the 



3io 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



Bible which are to be read by those who will, are an- 
nounced in such order and number as will finish the 
Bible in the year. A doxology and benediction con- 
clude the services, after which friendly and fraternal 
greetings are- freely exchanged. 

Some remain to spend the hour which intervenes 
between that and the Sunday-school session in friendly 
conversation, in consultation over the coming lesson, or 
in the rehearsal of Sunday-school songs. Others return 
home to relieve those older children or servants who 
care for the smaller ones during parental absence, that 
they may go to Sunday-school. 

The evening service may or may not have a prelim- 
inary song. The pulpit work is, however, always in- 
troduced by singing, reading a portion of Scripture, 
prayer and singing again. These songs are usually of 
the chorus kind or some other light and popular air, and 
of varied theme. The Scripture lesson is related to or 
preparatory for the address or lecture which is to follow. 
Evening announcements come immediately before the 
reading of the text. The evening discourse is of varied 
character, and may be for the instruction of the younger 
members of the church, for the information or conver- 
sion of the world, or the treatment of some popular 
question. This, too, is immediately followed by a song ; 
and, if the theme of the evening has led to it, an in- 
vitation to come to Christ is extended. A short dis- 
missal prayer concludes this service. If, however, an 
evening collection for missions or other purposes has 
been announced in the morning, it is taken up imme- 
diately before this prayer. 

The Business Meetings of the church take place 
monthly on some set week-day evening. They are free 



AT WORK AND AT WORSHIP. 3 I I 

to all the membership, but are generally attended by the 
officers only, who report such matters as the whole 
church needs to know or act upon either at the follow- 
ing general prayer-meeting or at the next Lord's day 
morning, according to the nature of the matter to be 
considered. The clerk's quarterly and annual reports 
of moneys contributed and expended are, however, 
made just before dismissal on the proper Lord's day 
forenoon, that all may know whether their individual 
contributions received due credit, and whether it is 
necessary for them to increase their amounts to meet 
any deficiency. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



THE STATE. 



. It has already appeared in sundry places that Som- 
erset has been a large factor in the mission work of the 
State. Though not properly Somerset history, that 
work, as a whole, may with profit receive a hasty 
treatment; for many things are *ast perishing from 
memory, as too many others have already perished. 

Respecting the joining of hands to save others, 
Alexander Campbell, so early as 1832, wrote thus: 

" That right reason will lead to such cooperation, observation 
recommend it, and experience approve it, requires but little reflection 
to discover. But it is nevertheless necessary to call the attention of the 
disciples to this matter, and as previous to it another matter is still 
more evident, viz., that it is enjoined upon members of one congrega- 
tion to cooperate, not only in promoting their own edification, but also 
the salvation of the world. The apostles taught this lesson in a variety 
of ways. ... So soon as they formed a single congregation in any 
one place, they taught that congregation to cooperate in the salvation 
of the world. 1st. By prayers. . . . 2nd. Not only in their 
prayers, but also in their contributions "for their support in the work," 
etc. — See Mill. Harb., 1832, pp. 244-250. 

And when this good man found that, as a whole, 

churches would not universally cooperate, he saw 
312 



THE STATE. 



313 



neither reason nor Scripture why willing individuals of 
various churches should not combine to do their duty, 
and so, in October, 1849, he. led in the organization at 
Cincinnati, Ohio, of the "American Christian Mis- 
sionary Society." Sickness prevented his personal 
presence, but he became its President and directed its 
affairs for many years, approving its delegate system, 
annual members, and life directors, "fat secretaries," 
and all. 

In Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, individual workers 
pioneered the way. Of these sundry instances have 
already been here and there given, and a few more may 
be added. In Western Pennsylvania there were many 
laborers of whose names the reader is already in pos- 
session and whose history may be mirrored by a single 
instance. L. P. Streator wrote, March 14, 1887, thus: 

"When I first traveled over Western Pennsylvania, there was no 
church at Pleasant Valley, Brownsville, California, Fayette City, Belle 
Vernon, Monongahela City, Maple Creek, McKeesport, Braddocks, 
Bethel, Pennsville, Lobingier's Mills, Clarksviile, The Ridge, Hol- 
brook, nor Morris Cross Roads. At all of these places, and some in- 
tervening points, I preached the story of Jesus and His salvation, in 
bar-room, school-house, barn, grove, and now and then in meeting- 
house. I was opposed, laughed at, clubbed, stoned and lied about, but 
felt that God was on my side and Jesus in my soul, and I feared not the 
combined powers of earth and hell. Thank God, I have lived to see 
strong churches (some of them but recently) built up in many of the 
foregoing places. I used to preach from four to sixteen times a week, 
riding from twenty to two hundred miles on horseback. I had from 
one to nineteen persons come forward at a single invitation. 

" At first I received $200 a year, then $300, then $400, then $600. 
Then, when I was President of the missionary work in Southwestern 
Pennsylvania, I succeeded in carrying the pay of our evangelist up to 
$800, and in time of the war to $1,000." 

How matters progessed east of the Mountains has 
already been indicated in the sketch of N. J. Mitchell, 



314 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



under Evangelists, and may be further seen by the fol- 
lowing, from pp. 228-9, Mill. Harb., 1832: 

" Alba, Bradford Co., Pa., March 29, 1832. 

" Canton. — In 1829 this church was rejected by the Chemung Bap- 
tist Association for no other reason than because they were unwilling 
to take any other course than the word of God directed. It then con- 
sisted of sixty members ; and, notwithstanding the violent opposition 
of all the sects, and the dishonorable means to which the Chemung 
Association has resorted in order to its overthrow, it now consists of no 
members, and meets weekly to attend to the worship of God in the an- 
cient manner. She has two bishops and one deacon. The brethren of 
this church have certainly manifested a very commendable share of 
patience towards those who, instead of persecuting, ought to have loved 
them. I do hope our fellow-disciples throughout the world will re- 
member the law of our King, and ' not render railing for railing.' 

" Smithfield. — This church is composed of forty members, who were 
expelled ' for voting to dispense with the Articles and Covenant,' and to 
take the word of God alone for their guide. This occurred about fif- 
teen months since. According to the ancient practice, these brethren 
are, in a good degree, walking in all the commandments and ordin- 
ances. They have two bishops and two deacons. 

" Columbia. — This church consists of about thirty-five members,* 
and meets, I believe, every Lord's day, but does not as frequently break 
the loaf. They want visiting and encouraging; and I do most earnestly 
desire some of our brethren from the West to pny us a visit. It would 
be highly encouraging to all our churches. 

" Columbia and Troy. — These brethren met, for the first time as a. 
church, in August, 1830, and at that time amounted to but nineteen 
members. They have since increased to forty-one. They pay a prim- 
itive regard to the first day of the week. 

" Ridgebury — This is a church in connection with the Christian de- 
nomination. Bro. Sweet, their elder, has decidedly fallen in with the 
ancient gospel. I visited that church considerably during last winter,, 
and must say that 1 never met with a people more disposed to believe 
the truth. I believe they are about forty in number. They do not 
meet every first day of the week to break the loaf, but I hope they soon 
will. 

"There is a small church, of about twenty members, in Luzerne 
county, which I hope is doing honor to the Redeemer. — Silas E~ 
Shepard." 



THE STATE. 315 

As the Disciple movement in general was cradled 
in the Christian Association of Washington, Pennsyl- 
vania, in the dawn of this century's teens, so the Som- 
erset church, in its re-organization, is the child of the 
Washington Baptist Association of the latter part of 
the twenties. From the start, therefore, Somerset 
was a sort of a missionary society to surrounding 
regions and had also a full share in all the missionary 
on-goings of Pennsylvania. "In the latter part of 
the thirties," says James Darsie, "Robert Forrester, 
of Pittsburg, was chosen as the first Evangelist for 
the Western part of Pennsylvania and what is now 
part of West Virginia, though he did not fill out his 
year before going to Kentucky." As this territory will 
be recognized as embracing the home of the Camp- 
bells, the origin of the missionary influence will not be 
far to seek. "About 1843," says L. P. Streator, "a 
cooperation of seventeen churches, among which Som- 
erset sat as stately queen, was formed. It extended 
into (West) Virginia and Ohio. Dr. Lucy was princi- 
pal Evangelist in that move." 

When, however, the general organization above al- 
luded to had been effected at Cincinnati, Ohio, Penn- 
sylvania went into a State organization the first of the 
following June (1850), in which Somerset took the 
initiative and long held the supremacy, if indeed she 
ever relinquished it save for a time after the fires. This 
movement, as well as the general one at Cincinnati, 
was severely criticised at the time by some who 
thought themselves both wiser and more "sound" 
than its grand leaders, using the same arguments that 
may to this day be heard in certain quarters against or- 



3i6 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



ganized efforts ; but the answers of such men as A. 
Campbell were crushing and decisive. 

The work, once started grew in several directions. 
In November, 1854, a Preachers' Reunion was held in 
Pittsburg. Anotherin Allegheny, July 8, 9 and 10, 1855, 
attended by Pres. W. K. Pendleton, R. Richardson, R. 
Milligan, A. S. Hayden, Thos. Munnell, B. F. Perky, 
C. L. Loos, J. W. Lanphear, J. B. Pyatt, W. W. Eaton, 
A. E. Myers, Joseph King, T. V. Berry, L. P. Streator, 

Isaac Errett, and Williams. The topics discussed 

related chiefly to ministerial work and duty. On the 
second day, " according to arrangements previously an- 
nounced," Bro. Lanphear delivered an " interesting ad- 
dress touching our duties and Christian demeanor 
towards other denominations." Brave men — those 
forefathers of ours ; they dealt with handsome ques- 
tions, and, no doubt, in a handsome way. Arrange- 
ments were made for another meeting on the first Tues- 
day after the 4th of July, 1856. But somehow these 
meetings have forsaken Pennsylvania soil to its detri- 
ment, and have gone westward to prosper and to bless. 

Respecting the Pennsylvania Missionary Society, 
JamesDarsie writes : 

" When first organized, the church of Somerset was appointed by 
the Convention to superintend the missionary operations of the society, 
in undertaking this work they appointed a committee composed of 
Judge Kimmel, Wm. H. Posthlethwaite, Jacob Schell, and others, who 
served the Society for some time. When Bro. Loos settled in Somerset, 
at his suggestion a Board of Managers was appointed to take charge of 
and conduct the operations of the society. I believe that Bro. Loos 
was the first Corresponding Secretary. When he removed from Som- 
erset Bro. Campbell McKeever succeeded him. After him Bro. Lyman 
Streator served as Corresponding Secretary for some time. At that time 
I was President of the Board. I was then appointed Corresponding 
Secretary, and served them for several years. Bro. M. L. Streator 



THE STATE. 317 

served as Corresponding Secretary for several years ; and it was during 
his administration that an alliance was formed with the Bible Chris ians 
of the eastern part of the State, which has resulted in a permanent 
union of the two bodies and greatly added to our strength in the north- 
eastern parts of the State." 

On September, ioth, 1857, the society met in Alle- 
gheny, with H. B. Goe, as President, Wm. J. Lynn, as 
Vice-President, and Bateman Goe and Levi Norton as 
Secretaries. Alexander Campbell was also in attendance. 
After four " whereases," they passed resolutions on 
our duty to evangelize the world, to contribute prayers 
and means, to aid "all those Ministers of the Word 
who are engaged in home missions and those about to 
depart to various lands," and then — 

" Resolved, That we recommend to the churches throughout the 
State to form District Cooperations, and that the means in each district 
be appropriated to the strengthening of the cause in weak congrega- 
tions, and to the preaching of the gospel in destitute places." 

In accordance with this resolution James Darsie re- 
ported, March 3, 1858, that Washington and Fayette 
counties constituted one district with twelve churches 
and about one thousand Disciples; that Somerset and 
Cambria counties formed a district, raised a fund of 
$1,600, employed four Evangelists, namely, Norton, 
Pyatt, Bevans, and Lloyd, who traveled two and two. 
Bro. J. Z. Taylor had also labored three months and 
had gone back to Bethany. About one hundred per- 
sons had been converted. Darsie adds : 

" From my exp'erience in the work of the conversion of sinners, 
much, very much, will depend, 1st, upon the faithful presentation of the 
truth as it is in Jesus ; 2d, upon the piety, devotion and spirituality of 
those who proclaim the word." 

How far this districting of the State was then car- 
ried, the writer has failed to learn. However in the 



3i» 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



fall of 1859, "The Central Pennsylvania Missionary 
Cooperation" was formed in the regions of Center 
county. There was indeed, an earlier movement which, 
if it ever came to more than incipient resolutions, died 
a premature death. It is thus noted, in the Harbinger, 
for 1850, p. 357: 

"The Northern Christian Cooperation Meeting met at Smithfield, 
Bradford county, Pennsylvania, April 20, 1850, with Bro. L. B. Hyatt, 
Moderator, and E. E. Orvis, Clerk, and passed, among others, these 
resolutions : 

" Resolved, That we recommend to the churches to become auxil- 
iary to the American Christian Bible Society and the American Chris- 
tian Missionary Society. 

" Resolved, That we approve of the call for a State Convention to 
meet in Somerset, Pennsylvania, on the 1st of May; and that, therefore, 
we appoint delegates to unite with them in deliberations in reference to 
the interests of the cause within the boundaries of our own State. 

" Whereupon the following brethren were appointed said delegates 
Bros. T. Miller, L. B. Hyatt and E. E. Orvis." 

Until the re-organization of the society, in 1882, its 
transactions and minutes were not published, though 
some matters still exist in manuscript form. Nor can 
space be here afforded for a full history. Some hints 
may be gathered from the chapters on Evangelists, and 
other things are given sufficiently full in — 

" The Twentieth Annual Report of the Board of the Pennsylvania Christian 
Missionary Society, for the Missionary Year Ending the 25th of August, 
1870 : 

"Dear Brethren: — As nearly a generation has passed away 
since the organization of our society, a succinct account of its origin 
will not be regarded as out of place. Our Society had its origin on the 
1st of June, 1850, pursuant to a request made by Bro. Samuel Church, 
of Pittsburg, and published in the Harbinger dated the 16th of Novem- 
ber, 1849, suggesting to the brotherhood of Pennsylvania the propriety 
and expediency of calling a convention to confer upon and take action 
with reference to our Bible and missionary enterprises. A response 



THE STATE. 319 

from the Somerset Church, through Bro. J. J. Schell, appeared in the 
Harbinger, dated February 4, 1850, concurring in the request, and 
naming Somerset as the place and the 1st of June as the time, for hold- 
ing said convention for the organization of a State society. Thus 
originated our first State Convention. 

" It is refreshing to look back and see the zeal and unanimity of the 
brotherhood in their first efforts to promote the cause of Christ in this 
great State. I find, in examining the early records of the society, the 
following points, among others, selected for missionary labor : Brad- 
dock's Fields, Johnstown, Ebensburg, Pine Flats, Shade Furnace [now 
Hooversville], Newcastle, etc., etc. It is a pleasing fact for us to state 
in this twentieth annual report that these, as well as other points which 
were then missionary stations, are now, through the fostering care of 
the Pennsylvania Missionary Society, self-sustaining churches, and con- 
tributing to the State and General societies. If nothing more had been 
done by the State society than this, we would regard our labors as not 
in vain in the Lord. But we are happy to say that thousands have been 
brought into the fold of Christ through the operations of our society. 
Are not these facts sufficient ground for us to thank God and take 
•courage ? — to 

" ' Bate no jot of heart nor hope, 
But only press right on' ? ... 

'* The year just closed has been one of great success and encourage- 
ment to the friends of the missionary cause in the State. Wherever an 
earnest effort has been made the results are truly gratifying. The dis- 
tricts have worked creditably. The success has surprised our most 
sanguine expectations. From the data before us we conclude that more 
than five hundred persons have been added to the cause during the past 
year as the result of missionary labor, and that too by only the partial 
labors of the following brethren: Rowe, Delmont, Hyatt, Hertzog, 
Shaw, Kinter, Clendening, M. L. Streator, Hutton, J. Darsie, John 
Streator, J. L. Darsie, Husband, and Bevins. The Corresponding 
Secretary was in the field but for six weeks during the past year. Could 
he have devoted his whole time to the State field, the results would 
doubtless have been still more gratifying. The amount of funds sub- 
scribed and disbursed will probably exceed $3,000. There have been 
five districts organized in the State. . . . 

" Your Board, from an experience of twenty years, have reached 
the following conclusions : 

" 1st. The Church of Jesus Christ can only fulfill her sublime mis- 
sion by carrying forward the work of the Lord upon the grand principle 




320 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



of cooperation, and such cooperation as will reach every member of the 
church and make him or her a cooperant to the extent of his or her 
moral influence, intellectual capacity and financial ability. . . . 

"The appointment of a Corresponding Secretary . . . who 
can be sustained the whole of his time in perfecting the organization, 
directing the labors of the missionaries, conferring with district secre- 
taries, attending annual meetings, and preaching wherever his services 
are most needed. 

" 3d. Such a system of finance as will bring quarterly contributions 
from every church member to the extent of his or her ability. 

"4th. The appointment of a financial agent in every church. . . ■ 

" That we adopt and faithfully carry out the Louisville Plan for 
conducting the missionary operations of the State. 

'•James Darsie, Cor. Sec'y." 

The whole matter is thus briefly summed up by 
one who is thoroughly acquainted with the entire his- 
tory : 

"The Missionary Society, organized in Somerset in 1850, was 
united with the churches in the Panhandle of West Virginia in the year 

1863, and known as the Pennsylvania Missionary Society. {Mill. Bar., 

1864, p. 423.) Under this arrangement A. Wilcox and L. Southmayd 
did some good missionary work. In 1871 Bro. M. L. Streator was 
chosen Corresponding Secretary, and retained the position five years, 
and did the best work that was ever done by any man in that office in 
Pennsylvania. He held some excellent meetings, put into practical 
operation the Louisville Plan of '69 so far as it could be done, aided in 
adjusting some embarrassing difficulti s, gathered statistics and other 
valuable .nformation from the churches, brought the Pennsylvania 
Christian conference into practical cooperation with the Disciples, and 
diffused valuable knowledge concerning missions, the work of the 
evangelist, and the scriptural teaching on the mutual relation and obli- 
gation of churches. 

" In 1876 James Darsie succeeded him, and, under his administra- 
tion, $600 were expended in supporting a man in Harrisbur^ who had 
recently come to us from the Baptists, by the name of Kirkpatrick. The 
G. C. M. C. furnished half the money, but the whole movement sud- 
denly collapsed because an assistant whom Kirkpatrick employed proved 
to be unworthy and fled, and he himself was not the man for the work. 

" In October, 1877, at the convention in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, 



THE STATE. 3 21 

the opposition to the Louisville Plan and the failure in Harrisburg killed 
the society. That was the end of all State cooperation until August 7, 
1882, when the present cooperation was started at Somerset and com- 
pleted in 1883 at Lock Haven. 

" The main difficulty now in the way of cooperative effort in 
Western Pennsylvania is to overcome the effect of the opposition to the 
Louisville Plan. The arguments against that plan apply with equal 
force against any other plan or agreement among brethren ; and as they 
all appeal to men's covetousness they derive their only potency from 
that fact. 

" The palpable fallacy that men can favor missionary work and yet 
oppose every possible method of doing it, has lulled many consciences 
into false repose.— W. L. Hayden." 

To the latter part of the foregoing it may be well 
to add a recent statement or two by Prof. J. W. Mc- 
Garvey. In the Apostolic Guide for May 13, 1887, in 
an editorial on "The Righteousness of Missionary 
Boards," after showing that the Scriptures record three 
methods of working : (1) churches supported preachers, 

(2) individuals did so (see Rom. xvi. 2 ; II. Tim. i. 15- 
18; Tit. iii. 13, 14; Phil. iv. 3; III. John v. 5), and 

(3) preachers supported themselves, he says that these 
methods are not matters of "revelation, " but simply 
of "record," then adds: 

" Now let us say to Bro. Wright that every single missionary work- 
ing in connection with a mission board is supported, as the ancient 
preachers were, by churches and individual Christians. The only dif- 
ference in the support of the one class and the other is found in getting 
the money to them. In the ancient times a messenger was Bent by the 
church, sometimes at great expense and risk of health and life (see the 
case of Epaphroditus, Phil. ii. 25-30; iv. 10-18), to bear the gift to the 
preacher. If several churches at a distance from one another contrib- 
uted, as many messengers were sent. Now, on account of new facilities 
of travel and communication, a group of chosen brethren receive the 
money from a number of churches and individuals, sometimes engaging 
a brother to solicit it, and pass it over in equitable sums to those who 
do the work. The change in method is the result of the change in 



32: 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



facilities. The principle of action is precisely the same, and the apos- 
tolic precedent is followed. This is the true conception of cooperation 
through a missionary board, and any departure from it in individual 
cases is a departure from the scriptural ideal." 

On the first page of the same issue Bro. McGarvey 
says : 

" When love is languishing in the churches, when consecration is 
almost unknown^ when growth in grace is the exception, and a deadly 
indifference to all spiritual interests is the rule, and the world is going 
to ruin, it is surely a pitiable prostitution of Christian journalism, for 
almost entire issues, week after week, to be occupied with petty oppo- 
sition to somebody's plan, and an equally petty defense of their own, 
all of which can be of no possible benefit to any human soul, but of 
irreparable injury to some who mistake a cancerous partisanship in the 
advocacy of incidentals for soundness in the faith." 

Returning now briefly to the only systematic work 
ever done in the State, namely that of M. L. Streator, 
let the fact be noted how the State was districted and 
how matters worked. There were seven districts and 
some scattered churches. The territory was thus divided : 
No. I. Washington, Green and Fayette counties ; No. 
2. Lawrence and Mercer; No. 3 Somerset; No. 4. 
Cambria and Indiana; No. 5. Center and Clinton; No. 
6. Bradford and Tioga ; No. 7. The Pennsylvania Chris- 
tian Conference, reaching over Bradford, Columbia, 
Wyoming, Luzerne and Lycoming counties, and em- 
bracing about twenty-one churches and some eleven 
preachers. The undistricted churches were such as 
Allegheny, Braddocks, Coatsville, Corsica, Hazelwood, 
New London and Philadelphia. 

From manuscript tables the writer has compiled the 
following, covering the first five years of Streator's 
work: 



a 





\ 1 1 ? p 


caching. | 

Is 


51 

3 


I net 

3 


O 
I 


- 


> 
3 
c 

W 
c_ 

-a 

Orq 




> 

3 


H 









n 


*n 




I 


O 


O 


> 


2, 

i 

7 1 


•a 

$305,800 




El 

O 


3 

CO 

0. 

r 


Rate 

Valu 

Gran 
Num 

Sand 

Sand 
Numl 




a e < 

! 


£ 5T S ° ! ni 

V- 5 ° n c 

g r 2 S.5 

o 3 5- 2. 7 

- 1 i .- ? 


.11 8 20 . . 




c 

1 


0. 
b 




5" 


■a 


in 
0. 

o_ 


y 

•6 


CO 



c 



o_ 

•0 


>< 


o_ 

e? 

c/> 

■a 



II 

1 

0' 


11 

Cfl 

H 


1 1 





O 



■o 


•0 

1 




5.49° 


533! : 

1 


16 


125 


$21,348 


00 


$4,037 00 


$15,841 


07 


$ 491 67 


$2,394 


, 


$5,080 05 


$1,109 37 


$ 891 75 


$ 


R 25 


3,212 


3,958 


T855 










$ 9 64 


iS 















25 15 23 7 


6,122 


616 ; 


33 


156 


25,679 


26 


2',485 


29 


14,799 


54 


1,570 00 


2,871 


42 


5,562 68 


1,066 77 


1,855 8c 


860 oc 


368,700 


4.3 1 - 


6, 108 


2,173 




9 59 












6,8oo 


522 " 


27 


IOI 


28,619 


35 


2,188 


05 


24,014 


53 




5,709 


59 


6,217 62 


1, [27 88 


2,481 3c 






4,898 6,340 1,78, 


2,157 


34 °° 4 6 


72,549 4? 






I 








- 


7.733 

3,i 4 y 


1.397 : 


93 


140 


27,961 


60 


2,823 


40 


22,797 


12 




1,131 


04 


6,649 2 c 


760 4. 


7*5 77 457 33 - 


5,478 7,856 2,22 


5 2,517 2 


5 177 99 633 66,787 7 


429,600 


a 8 64 








1,201 s 


2 9 


57 


26,743 


66 


2,157 


33 


28,909 


59 




'■'* 


1 


5,627 44 879 1 


2,464 7 












626 70,529 8 






7 115 ou.... 











THE STATE. 323 

This table gives but a faint hint of the amount of 
work done under the Louisville Plan ; and the immense 
prosperity of other states, who have had the wisdom to 
continue systematic work, must serve as the measure 
of Pennsylvania's loss. Sorry satisfaction ! 

The Convention of Christian Workers, which met 
at Somerset, August 7, 1883, to reorganize the State 
work, had to begin in a timid way (there were spoiled 
(i babes" to be nursed), and is still hampered by that 
unreasonable and unscriptural conservatism which is so 
admirably rebuked in the preceding quotations from 
Prof. McGarvey. Some fifteen preachers and about 
eighty other brethren (outside of Somerset) were pres- 
ent at that convention. The ministers were : T. D. 
Butler, W. L. Hayden (whose daughter was immersed 
at the close of the meeting), A. B. Chamberlain, Peter 
Vogel, L. B. Hyatt (who was also present at the or- 
ganization in 1850), W. S. Brown, Kleeberger, C. S. 
Long, M. B. Ryan, Dr. I. A. Thayer, M. H. Tipton, T. 
F. Richardson, Neal S. McCallum, Pinkerton and W. 
H. Woolery. The way, however, was not clear for the 
employment of a State Evangelist until a few months 
before the Williamsport Convention of October 5-7, 
1886. 

The present officers are : I. A. Thayer, of New- 
castle, President ; W. E. Hall, of Philadelphia, Vice- 
President; J. O. Cutts, of Lock Haven, Secretary; A. 
B. Chamberlain, of Philadelphia, Corresponding Secre- 
tary ; Kinley J. Tener, of Philadelphia, Treasurer. 

Under date of April 29, 1878, the State Evangelist 
writes as follows : 

"I have been engaged in the State work eleven months. During 
this time there have been added to the churches, under my labors, 138 



324 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

persons. The fraternal spirit has been continually cultivated between 
the Free Baptists and our people until we are practically united in work 
at Harrisburg and Camp Hill, Dr. Calder having charge of the work, 
and we having access to the pulpit of the Free Baptist Church in Har- 
risburg. Dr. C. is sustained in part by the State Board. 

" We have done purely missionary work at Camp Hill and Sunbury. 
At the latter place we have great hope of establishing a strong church. 
Some preparatory work has been done at Bellefonte, and the work 
there would have been fairly under way but for our utter failure to 
secure a suitable place in which to hold the meeting. They are laying 
by a weekly contribution, expecting the work to be opened in the early 
fall. Supplemental work has been done at Troy, which is a mission of 
the third district. Two weeks have also been given to the Johnstown 
Church, for which Bro. Hayden will spend two weeks among the old 
Christians of Bedford county. 

"There has been a vast amount of work done which can not be 
enumerated ; for example, many of the churches have been led to begin 
systematic collections for foreign, gen ral and home missions. This has 
been brought about largely through the efforts of the Evangelist, under 
the direction of the State Board. Churches have been supplied with 
preaching; others have been helped by counsel and personal labor to 
tide over serious troubles; information concerning little bands of Dis- 
ciples, and also concerning isolated ones, has been secured ; prospective 
fields, such as Scranton, Erie, Bellefonte, Bradford, Sunbury, etc., have 
been examined, and their true condition arrived at; and a hundred 
items of this character have been ascertained, which could have been 
learned in no other way. 

" The State work has two missions on hand, viz. : Camp Hill and 
Sunbury. 

"We have raised and expended, in eleven months, $1,500, and 
have added to the churches 138 persons. — H. B. Sherman, State 
Evangelist." 

Here the State work of the sisters deserves mention. 
The present officers are Miss Belle Kimmel, of Somer- 
set, President, and Miss Virginia Miller, of Allegheny, 
Secretary. At the Williamsport Convention, October, 
1886, the Secretary reported that twenty of the ninety- 
nine churches have organizations, and that Mrs. C. S. 
King, who has charge of the children's department, re- 



THE STATE. 325 

ports seven bands in operation, with interest growing 
everywhere. The Secretary well says: "Pennsylvania 
is not doing her share of the work," "does not stand 
well in the list of the States," "does not sufficiently 
help the Board to meet its obligations." The cash 
realized was in the neighborhood of $500. There is 
large promise in this movement, for the sisters are led 
by heart-strings, not balked by false logic. 

At present there are only three districts in the State. 

The second district, which is a few weeks older than 
the first, was organized at Johnstown, April 17 and 18, 
1883, and includes the counties of Somerset, Cambria, 
Westmoreland and Indiana. Its first officers were : 
President, Peter Vogel; Vice-President, Neal S. Mc- 
Callum ; Secretary, Marie R. Butler ; Treasurer, Henry 
F. Schell, and Evangelist, T. D. Butler. To overcome 
all friction, the constitution provides that — 

" The Association shall consist of messengers regularly chosen by 
the churches, not less than two for every fifty members or fraction 
thereof. 

"The Board shall consist of one member elected annually by each 
church, whose duty it shall be to have charge of all the purposes, in- 
terests and work of the convention." 

This places it wholly into the hands of the churches, 
and yet there are a few churches, as well as persons 
who call themselves evangelists, who have never fellow 
shipped the movement ! 

The present officers, elected at Pine Flat, June 2, 
1886, are: W. L. Hayden, President; John W. Wil- 
liams, Vice-President; Julia A. Evans, Secretary; H. 
F. Schell, Treasurer, and Peter Vogel, Evangelist. 
With the exception of the Vice-President, these are the 
same as the year previous. The Evangelist has always 



326 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

been a pastor who could devote to the work only occa- 
sional Sundays. Lack of sufficient funds has so far 
made this course necessary. Considerable work has, 
however, been done, as may be gathered from previous 
chapters. More work and generous results seem at the 
door of the future. 

In Somerset county Elisha E. Candee, of Cayuga, 
New York, has begun work among a number of 
churches, and, no doubt, an additional man will be in 
the field within a year. 

In Bedford county, which is destined to be a part of 
the second district, there is a church at Hyndman, 
where R. E. Lloyd has recently located. Then there 
is large promise in the exchange trip alluded to in the 
State Evangelist's communication. A few weeks ago 
W. L. Hayden, of Johnstown, went to the eastern part 
of Bedford county and preached to some of the Chris- 
tian churches in that region. There are twenty-six 
churches of that body in Bedford and Fulton counties, 
with an aggregate membership of thirteen hundred 
souls. There are about ten preachers who '■' labor in 
word and doctrine " among them as their services are 
demanded, but they are also engaged in secular pursuits 
more or less of the time. The object of this recent 
visit was to introduce an acquaintance and to open com- 
munication between the Disciples in the adjacent coun- 
ties and these Christians. With so much in common, 
the onsweeping current of religious sentiment in favor 
of Christian union should draw these bodies into closer 
sympathy and fellowship. Their published principles 
reveal a near kinship in aim and spirit, and the history 
of past efforts in this direction proves that when these 
Christians fully conform to their accepted "rule of 



THE STATE. 327 

faith and practice " in their acts of worship and in their 
admission of persons to Christian fellowship, they be- 
come one with the Disciples. Though, in methods of 
work for the salvation of men, who can truly say that 
the general usages of the Disciples can not be modified 
to advantage in order to meet the customs, or even 
prejudices, of some other pious workers for Christ, 
and be equally scriptural and perhaps more effective? 
Certainly when the Disciples stereotype their methods 
and attempt to adjust everybody to Procrustean forms 
of worship or work that are not explicitly required in 
the word of God, they abandon their own strongest 
position and nullify their plea for Christian unity. 

Bro. Hayden hopes to accept the cordial invitation 
tendered him to attend the next annual session of the 
Southern Pennsylvania Christian Conference in August. 
By mutual intercourse and acquaintance, by fellowship 
in Christian instruction, by full conference with repre- 
sentatives of the churches, and by free trade of ideas, 
a fraternal feeling and common sympathy will be ex- 
cited and strengthened that may ripen into formal, or- 
ganic union, with time, patience and prudence. 

Bro. Hayden is a safe man to whom to commit such 
a delicate and important movement. He is a Disciple 
of Disciples, with "no smell of sectarianism on his 
garments." He is thoroughly rooted and grounded in 
the basal principles of this great restoration, and com- 
prehends their far-reaching results. He holds them 
with unyielding faith, and has no more idea of compro- 
mising them than he has of losing his soul. Christian 
union has been made a special study by him in its re- 
lation to the Disciples themselves and in the relations 
to other bodies. He can state clearly and vindicate 



328 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

thoroughly the position of the Disciples on any occa- 
sion and in any presence. He is set for the defense of 
the gospel, the upbuilding of the cause of truth and 
righteousness, the union of Christians on the solid Rock 
on which Jesus built his church, and the conquest of 
the world for the enthroned Messiah. He does not 
assume that the Disciples have reached the summit of 
Christian attainment in the knowledge of the Holy 
Scriptures, nor that their plans and usages are the per- 
fection of wisdom. He walks in the light as God gives 
the light, and has fellowship with all who walk by the 
same rule. "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, 
liberty; in all things, charity." 

The first district was organized but a little time after 
the second. It embraces the counties of Mercer, Law- 
rence, Beaver, Allegheny, Washington and Fayette. 
Within these counties there are also some churches, and 
some men who preach, that do not join in the coopera- 
tion. Embracing more and richer churches than the 
second district, it has raised more money and been more 
efficient. Its principal efforts have been centered on two 
points, namely, Beaver Falls and the East End of Pitts- 
burg. Sufficient information will, perhaps, be given of 
this district by transcribing from the Christian Standard 
of April 30, 1887, a part of the report of Secretary H. 
K. Pendleton of its fifth annual convention, held in 
Washington, April 12 to 13, 1887: 

" From April, 1886, until October, 1886, the mission at Beaver 
Falls was helped in having preaching about half the time. In October, 
1886, Bro. C. G. Brelos was employed to work for the Beaver Falls 
mission half the time, and devote the other half to evangelization and 
rousing the missionary zeal of the churches. Under his care the mission 
at Beaver Falls has prospered to such an extent that it has purchased 
a lot and will build a house of worship this summer. By his work in 



THE STATE. 329 

the field he has succeeded in inducing these churches to give liberal sup- 
port, which had hitherto failed to do so, and has created a kinder feel- 
ing toward the cooperation in many others. 

'• The mission at East End was aided during the year in having 
preaching every Lord's day, although they were without a regular pastor 
until last October. Bro. T. D. Butler has been laboring very accept- 
ably with them. During his ministry eighteen souls have been added 
to the church, and, if missionary zeal can be taken as an index of 
spiritual condition, they are in a very healthy state. 

•'We began the year with a balance of $320.52 in the treasury. 
We raised during the year $699.15, making a total of $1,019.67. We 
expended during the year $690.82, leaving a balance of $328.85 in the 
treasury. Two hundred dollars of this was some years ago appropriated 
by the convention to the building of a house of worship at Beaver Falls, 
and will be paid them very soon. At the convention $906.40 were 
pledged for the new year, which will, of course, be increased. 

The third district lies east of the mountains, and was 
last formed. Its component parts are the previous Dis- 
ciple convention of Bradford, Tioga and other counties, 
and the Pennsylvania Christian Conference originally of 
the "Christian Connection." The history of the latter 
body, and its movements Disciple wards, is thus hastily 
sketched * by C. S. Long in two communications here 
blended : 

" The Pennsylvania Christian Conference was organized in Lewis- 
burg, Pennsylvania, September 11, 1834 [1835?]. Elder G. W. Rich- 
mond was the first Moderator, and John H. Currier, Clerk. The fol- 
lowing preachers were present, viz. : G. W. Richmond, Seth Marvin, 
John H. Currier and Daniel Rote. John Ellis and J. J. Harvey were 
marked as itinerant. The membership of churches represented aggre- 
gated 418. J. J. Harvey was ordained to the work of an evangelist 
during the session. John Ellis was ordained at an extra session held in 
Plymouth, March 24, 1835. 

"The Pennsylvania Christian Conference was organized by the 
Christian Connection, a number of the preachers having been dismissed 



* An earlier paper, carefully written, gave a complete account, but it was 
unavoidably lost. 



33Q 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



from the New York Central Conference for that purpose. At the session 
of August, 1839, the following resolution was adopted: 'Voted, That 
it is the aim of Christianity to free the human mind, and that Christians 
as such, are bound only by the law of God; that progress in a knowl- 
edge of the truth is a Christian privilege and duty ; and that no influ- 
ence can rightly be used in relation to religious views but that of argu- 
ment and Scripture.' In August, 1840, the following resolution was 
adopted : ' Resolved, That we wish peace and prosperity to our brethren 
in Ohio, who have called for a convention in Cincinnati, and that we 
would approve of such convention provided it was intended simply ta 
discuss these topics for the sake of eliciting truth, but that we would 
not approve of such convention if it is designed to decide on these 
subjects for others, as all have an equal privilege to decide for them- 
selves.' 

" At the session of August, 1844, the following preamble and reso- 
lutions were adopted : ' Whereas, The Pennsylvania Christian Conference 
presents to the world as a fundamental truth that the Bible alone is a 
sufficient rule of faith and practice, and that all true Christians can be 
united upon it; and Whereas, The people known as the "Disciples of 
Christ" or "Reformers," the "Church of God," improperly called 
" Winebrennarians," and others, profess the same; and Whereas, It is 
of the highest importance that all persons making such profession live 
in union ; and Whereas, Such union does not exist, in consequence of 
misunderstanding or other causes, therefore, Resolved, That Elder J. J. 
Harvey (with such counsel as he can obtain) be appointed to correspond 
with some prominent person in each of the bodies mentioned, and such 
others as shall be thought proper, with a view of ascertaining the cause 
of such misunderstanding and disunion, and, if possible, to remove it ; 
that Christian character and not difference of opinion should be the 
true test of Christian fellowship'.' 

" Bro. Harvey engaged in a correspondence with Alex. Campbell, 
the result of which seems to be summed up in the following resolution 
passed in annual session, August 26, 1847 : « Resolved, that we deeply 
regret, both on his own account and on account of the cause of truth, 
the course pursued and ground taken by Elder Alexander Campbell in 
his correspondence with Elder Harvey on this subject. He makes, if 
we understand him, speculative Trinitarianism and untaught questions 
the basis of Christian union, and we, not subscribing to these, are by 
him rudely and uncourteously unchristianized and thrust aside as un- 



THE STATE. 331 

worthy of Christian fellowship.' * (For correspondence see Millennial 
Harbinger. ) 

" At the session held in Madisonville, August, 1853, Jacob Roden- 
baugh was elected Moderator. The New York Central and the Tioga 
River Conferences had during the year excluded some three or four 
preachers from their fellowship on account of their Disciple proclivities; 
among the number was the late L. B. Hyatt. At this session the 
Pennsylvania Christian Conference put itself on record concerning the 
conduct of its sister bodies in these ringing resolutions, viz. : ' Resolved, 
That we deeply regret the action of the New York Central and Tioga 
River Christian Conferences, at their late annua 1 - sessions, in passing 
certain resolutions disclaiming fellowship with some whose Christian 
character is unquestionable, in consequence of a difference of opinion. 
Resolved, That we regard all such movements as proscriptive and un- 
charitable, and as evidencing a disposition to forsake the old Christian 
ground by depriving others of the right of private judgment — a prin- 
ciple for which we as a people have always warmly contended.' 

" From this time on a few Disciple preachers found employment 
among some of the congregations comprising the conference, and began 
to infuse new life and open up a wider view of the truth. A few lead- 
ing spirits began to grow uneasy, fearing their supremacy fully as much 
as anything else. Elders Wm. Lane, J. J. Harvey, and one or two 
others of the old members, were true to the oft-repeated principles of 
the conference and came out boldly into the full light of gospel truth. 

*This charge of "speculative Trinitarianism," as against Alexander Camp- 
bell, is unfounded. He simply insisted that Peter's confession, " Thou art the 
Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. xvi. 16), was by Jesus himself pro. 
nounced to be "the rock" upon which he would build his church, and that hence 
Paul declared, " Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus 
Christ" (I. Cor. iii. 11). Nor did he "speculate'' about the divinity of Christ, 
but affirmed with John, "And the Word was God" (John i. 1). The Christian 
Connection hold that " the body of Christ was not a material, human, decaying 
body," and that in every sense the Father is greater than the Son. They reject 
the term " tri-personality " (which the Disciples use) as applied to God; indeed, 
they reject the term " person " altogether with respect to the Deity. Prof. Jere- 
miah D. Gray argues that because the word Pneuma (Greek for spirit) is gram- 
matically neuter, the Spirit can not be a personality, just as though the accident of 
grammatical (not natural) gender affected the case in any way. By the same logic 
he would also have to concede masculinity to the Spirit who is called Paracletos (a 
masculine term) in John xiv. 16, 26; xv. 26, and xvi. 7, and referred to by a mascu- 
line pronoun. " While they preach that immersion is the proper mode for the or- 
dinance, yet they will not debar an affusionist from membership. They hold that 
baptism in itself is not a saving ordinance — that pardon takes place before bap- 
tism." 



33 2 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

" In 1872 the Lewisburg Church, of which Jacob Rodenbaugh was 
pastor, together with himself, addressed letters to the conference asking 
to be dismissed from membership because the Disciple element seemed 
to predominate. Rodenbaugh was the leader in this movement, and it 
was expected that a general disintegration would set in and that the 
larger number would follow his lead. But in this he was disappointed, 
as he only succeeded in influencing a few preachers of small caliber and 
two or three congregations. The congregation of Sweet Valley, under 
the leadership of Wm. Hornbaker, felt more at home in a Methodist 
camp-meeting than in a session of the conference ; and I understand 
that they have progressed so rapidly in this direction that the few that 
are left have united with a Methodist congregation in supporting a 
Methodist preacher. The other congregations, under the scriptural 
guidance of such men as Wm. Lane, E. E. Orvis, J. J. Harvey, Z. W. 
Shepherd, L. B. Hyatt, D. M. Kinter, and others, came squarely into 
the Reformation. 

" I find in the minutes of the Pennsylvania Christian Conference of 
1871 the following: 'The committee on nomination of messengers to 
other conferences and religious bodies reported the following: Bro. J. 
Rodenbaugh, to the New York Central Christian Conference; Bro. Z. 
W. Shepherd, to the Susquehanna Yearly Meeting of the Free Will 
Baptists ; Bros. A. J. Clark, Z. W. Shepherd and E. E. Orvis to the 
Pennsylvania General Association of the Regular Baptists, to be held 
in Scranton in October next. E. E. Orvis, as messenger to the district 
missionary meeting at Canton, Bradford county, on September 15th; 
also to the New Jersey Conference, and W. B. France his alternate. 
Bro. Z. W. Shepherd to the district meeting at Lock Haven.' 

"This was about the first effort, so far as my memory serves me, 
of an attempt to bring about a more general cooperation between us 
and the Old Christian brethren. The meetings at Canton and Lock 
Haven were meetings of Disciples. From this time the leaven began 
to work; preachers with Disciple proclivities began to take the place 
of the Old Christian brethren until we had a majority in the conference. 
Bro. Streator met with us first in 1874. The preceding year Bro. Hy- 
att had been engaged by the conference as District Evangelist for some 
three or four months. From 1871 until 1879 the sessions were stormy 
ones, and at times threatened the existence of the conference ; but in 
1879 the churches comprising it had largely taken their stand with us. 
Before this, all overtures of union made by Bro. Streator, as Evangel- 
ist for the Disciples, had been rejected, but at the session of 1879, held 
at Plymouth, Pa., I offered a resolution to widen the bounds of the 



THE STATE. 333 

conference and hold the next meeting in Lock Haven. This was 
adopted, and it brought all the churches in Clinton and Center coun- 
ties into the cooperation. And upon a motion made by myself, the first 
organized missionary work was set on foot, and Williamsport was 
selected as the objective point. At the Lock Haven Convention of 
1880, I was appointed a delegate to represent the Pennsylvania Chris- 
tian Conference at the Annual Meeting of the Disciples in Bradford and 
Tioga counties, held at East Smithfield. I determined to bring these 
churches into our cooperation, if possible, but met Bros. Hyatt and 
Chamberlain there (the accredited Messengers of the New York State 
Missionary Society) on the same errand. The result was a drawn bat- 
tle — neither of us succeeded. The next year I was sent again, and suc- 
ceeded in bringing about the cooperation, and the Third Missionary 
District is the result, and the sustaining by the cooperation of two mis- 
sions, viz. : Williamsport and Troy. 

" Bro. M. B. Ryan and myself were self-constituted messengers to 
the first Missionary Convention of 1882, at Somerset, and succeeded in 
getting the second session appointed for Lock Haven. 

" Every one of the Old Christian churches that refused to come 
squarely into the Reformation is either dead or in a dying condition, 
while the others are growing in grace and in the missionary spirit. 

" Over two thousand Disciples are embraced in the membership of 
the congregations in the cooperation. Brethren Lane, Harvey, Hyatt 
and Orvis have finished their battles and crossed over the Jordan ; but 
true men are left to care for the work so grandly inaugurated by them. 
Of the original members, but one is now living, viz. : John Ellis, and 
he has been in sympathy with the Disciples for years." 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



SOME CAUSES OF FAILURE. 



Somerset has been so interlinked with the Disciple 
cause of the State of Pennsylvania, that it seemed 
impossible to complete this Tale without writing the 
preceding chapter. This, in turn, makes room for a 
brief comparative view of all the religious bodies in the 
State, and for some beneficial lessons growing out of 
such comparison. 

In Rand, McNally & Co.'s Atlas of the World, 
forty-three different religious bodies are enumerated in 
the United States, and thirty-nine of these are repre- 
sented in Pennsylvania. From the figures of this 
Atlas may be constructed the following table. (See 
opposite page.) 

The religious bodies in the United States not set 
down in this table, because they are not represented in 
Pennsylvania, are : Methodist Episcopal, South, 1,680,- 
799; Presbyterian, South, 119,970; Mormon (who, 
however, have one congregation in Pittsburg), 110,377; 
Methodist Episcopal, colored, 74,195; Shaker, 2,400; 
and Six Principle Baptist, 2,075. Rand, McNally & Co. 
also take no separate account of the Christian Connec- 



SOME CAUSES OF FAILURE. 



335 



PENNS YL VA NIA . 



U. S. 



Denomination. 



Churches. 



Ministers. Members 



Members- 



Roman Catholic 

Methodist Episcopal... 

Presbyterian .. 

Lutheran 

Reformed in the United States 

Baptist 

Protestant Episcopal 

United Presbyterian 

Evangelical Association 

United Brethren in Christ 

The Brethren (Dunkards) 

Disciples 

Church of God (Winebrennerian) 

Protestant Methodist 

Moravian 

Congregational 

Friends 

Cumberland Presbyterian 

United Evangelical 

Reformed Presbyterian. 

Free Will Baptist 

T ( Total population in Pa., 18,279 

jews | Total in United States, 230,497 

Reformed Church in America 

U niversalist 

Reformed Episcopal 

Primitive Methodist 

Second Advent 

Anti-Mission Baptist 

New Mennonites... 

Wesleyan Methodist 

Free Methodist 

Independent Methodist 

New Jerusalem 

Seventh Day Advents 

Unitarian Congregational 

Seventh Day Baptist 

Adventist 

American Communities (Karmonites) 



464 
i,545 

806 
1,018 

672 

53i 

299 

258 

472 

386 

140 

95 

148 

94 

16 

76 

47 

43 

5 

14 
57 
25 

9 

28 
7 

64 



556 

728 

862 

566 

352 

43 6 

366 

205 

372 

238 

327 

88 

132 

102 

40 

59 

32 

32 

4 

9 

46 

16 

9 
23 
11 
24 
10 
29 



515,000 

163,311 

127,310 

124,520 

72,057 

63,483 

38,938 

33,329 

32,513 

23,633 

20,000 

13,400 

8,200 

7,879 
6,778 
5,635 
5,200 
4,754 
2,605 
2,400 
2,187 
2,059 

2,004 

1,710 

1,619 

1,650 

1,250 

1,200 

1,000 

675 

630 

600 

538 

419 

35o 

232 

175 

100 



6,174,202 
1,680,799 
573,377 
684,570 
154,742 
2,133044 
323,876 

80 236 

99.607 
155,437 

90,000 
567,448 

20 224 
118,170 

16,112 
383,685 

67,643 

m,855 

144,000 

6.020 

76,706 

13,683 

80,236 
37.945 
10,459 

3-370 
63.500 
40,000 

2,990 
17,847 
12,120 

2,100 

4,734 
14,733 

8,606 
11,100 



tion, whose statistics for 1885 give 1,817 ministers and 
80,000 communicants in the United States. This body 
was evidently added in with the Disciples, since both 
go by the name of Christian ; and yet the number of 
Disciples for the United States (567,448) is at least 
100,000 below the actual figures, owing to the imper- 
fection of their statistical arrangements. 

Excluding Roman Catholics, and counting Meth- 
odist Episcopals, North and South, as one, the Disci- 
ples are the fifth religious body in the United States, 
in membership, and the fourth in number of ministers ; 



336 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and Presbyterians 
outnumbering them in membership, though the Luth- 
erans do not in ministers. But these bodies are all 
very much older ; while many other bodies, equally 
older, as the Protestant Episcopal, the Reformed, and 
the Congregational, are far surpassed by the Disciples 
of a. d 1827. This phenomenal growth, without par- 
allel in modern history, argues wonderful vitality 
somewhere. It has been the custom, in envious or 
thoughtless quarters, to account for this on the alleged 
ground of unconverted membership ; but no one who 
has ever conscientiously compared an average Disciple 
congregation with the average church of any other re- 
ligious body would even for a moment think of such a 
thing. To the incredulous it may happen as to a Bap- 
tist minister of Iowa, some ten years since, who argued 
in such a strain to a Disciple minister, and then, at 
parting, promised to send him something orthodox on 
conversion for his particular enlightenment. And 
when it came, lo ! it was a pamphlet sermon, on the 
subject, by Isaac Errett, the foremost living Disciple 
editor! Not that there are no "unconverted" mem- 
bers among the Disciples as well as among other re- 
ligious bodies, but that, as will appear below, where 
there are unconverted churches and graceless "preach- 
ers " precisely there the Disciple cause has flourished 
least and ephemerally. 

In Pennsylvania the Disciple cause stands eleventh 
in the list of Protestant effort, and that, too, in the face 
of the fact that on its soil that cause first germinated, 
and then sprang to life just beyond its borders. As 
there are no effects without adequate causes, we 
evidently now come into the presence of a fine oppor- 



SOME CAUSES OF FAILURE. 337 

tunity for gathering knowledge from facts, and wisdom 
from experience. 

In inquiring into these causes, it must first of all be 
noted that the Disciple movement is preeminently an 
intelligent one. It seeks first to give " light" through 
"the entrance of God's word," and then asks men " to 
walk in that light" "with all the heart." Not only 
were the original leaders of this movement rare 
scholars, especially in the Bible, but the Disciple min- 
istry has all along had, at least in its fore front, men of 
no mean ability and scholarship. From the first the 
Disciples were a reading people. It was the Christian 
Baptist of 1 823-1830 (giving, as all Disciple publica- 
tions, a full and equal hearing to all of any or no re- 
ligious faith who chose to write respectfully) that 
through its extensive circulation paved the way for the 
wonderful success dating from 1827. Eight years after 
the latter date, namely, in 1835, there were seven re- 
spectable Disciple periodicals, with four more an- 
nounced for the next year, besides the re-publication of 
the Christian Baptist! In 1845 they had seventeen 
American periodicals and three colleges. And at 
present there are, besides seven foreign periodicals, 
twenty-three weekly, monthly and quarterly general 
religious publications, and some dozen Sunday-school 
periodicals ; also forty- three schools, ranging from the 
academy up to the university. But in Pennsylvania, 
though now the second State in the Union for publi- 
cations, at least three different attempts at Disciple 
periodicals and several at schools have measurably 
failed. When, in 1853, the Sower was projected in 
Pittsburg, Mr. Campbell wrote : 



338 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



"The Harbinger has ever had a small circulation in Pennsylvania. 
But they say, 'You have not labored much in Pennsylvania.' Even in 
Pittsburg, where T have labored a good deal, its circulation is small. 
They are not a reading people. I do not think, with all my labors 
there, they can make up a respectable club. I find that where the 
Harbinger vs, most read, there is the most periodical reading." 

There is an interesting cause for all this. By far 
the largest per cent, of the southern half of Pennsyl- 
vania is of German stock. Even those northern por- 
tions of the State which were peopled by Connecticut 
immigrants are permeated by Germans, or, as they are 
popularly known, " Pennsylvania Dutch." Particu- 
larly some of the southeastern counties, by whom the 
counties farther west were from time to time populated, 
were overwhelmingly German, chiefly from the Palati- 
nate. Some of these were Friends, more of them were 
Reformed, but most of them were Lutheran. As a 
rule they were fairly schooled, could read and write, 
and represented fine musical talent. They brought 
both pastors and parochial school teachers with them, 
and made good use of both. But the Scotch-Irish 
Presbyterians, the Reformed French Huguenots, and 
the religiously mixed English, made subscription or 
pay schools necessary, and these by degrees encroached 
upon the former and degraded the German tongife. 
The free school system of 1834, though long fought — 
by the German pastor as without catechism the foe of 
his church, by the men of means as a burden of taxa- 
tion, and by nearly all as an innovation — yet finally 
prevailed. When Brothers' Valley township of Som- 
erset county, in 1844, by majority adopted this system, 
there were those who lurked for the Assessor with 
loaded guns. The last township of Berks county sur- 
rendered as late as 1867, while Conemaugh township 



SOME CAUSES OF FAILURE. 339 

of Somerset county held out till 1869. The result is 
that German, though largely spoken in its "Pennsyl- 
vania Dutch " form, is but little taught, and the people 
know only how to read English, which is to them 
largely an unfamiliar tongue (more so hitherto than 
now), and therefore uninviting. Thus it happens that 
while the illiteracy of Pennsylvania is but a fraction 
over three per cent., the average for the whole United 
States being seventeen per cent., Pennsylvania has 
been largely without either literature or language. 
"Pennsylvania Dutch," says Prof. Schaffer, of Kutz- 
town Normal, "contains only a vocabulary of from 
three to five hundred words exclusive of proper names, 
while the Bible with the same exclusion contains about 
twelve hundred words." This means a good deal, 
when it is remembered that a child of but three, years, 
if reared in an intelligent family, will use four hundred 
words, and such a child at five years will range from 
one thousand to fifteen hundred words. Though not 
one of the sixty-seven counties of Pennsylvania is 
without one or more newspapers, Somerset county 
having, four, yet when, about two years ago, twenty 
men, from whom a jury was to be impaneled to try a 
case of burglarizing the railroad depot, were asked by 
the Judge how many of them had been prejudiced by 
reading the papers,' eighteen of the twenty said they 
did not read the papers ! No doubt this is an extreme 
case, but it means much. Had the. Disciple cause first 
struck the New England portion of the State rather 
than its southern portion, the numerical showing might 
be different. 

Among such people the "traditions of the fathers" 
are more powerful than any voice that may cry, ' ' Come , 



340 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



let us reason together," and, " Ask for the old paths. ** 
It was this fact that was unconsciously spoken by the 
Rev. Prof. J. A. Brown, D. D., in the Lutheran Diet 
of 1877, when he said, as published in the report: 

"But still the stubborn fact remains, that our progress has been 
chiefly among the descendants of those who originally accepted the 
Lutheran form of the Reformation." — P. 84. 

" It might almost be said to require some mixture of German blood 
to make a full-blooded Lutheran." — P. 85. 

The facts now before us help us also to the key to 
another phenomenon in Pennsylvania religion. It is 
noticeable, that notwithstanding that the Lutherans, 
the Reformed, and the Presbyterians had better chance 
of increase by immigration, yet the Methodists out- 
number them both in the State and in the United 
States. Even the Evangelical Association, largely a 
German Methodist body, which, though about thirty 
years older than the Disciples and only about one-sixth 
as strong in the United States, nevertheless outnumbers 
the Disciples in Pennsylvania almost three to one. This 
is no doubt due to their method of " conversion." As 
they do not seek to reach the heart through the head, 
but attack the feelings at once, no special degree of 
education or understanding is required in order to their 
success, and even the charm of tradition is distanced by 
the intoxication of the heart. And if the delirium of 
a moment can make one feel richer than years of steady 
toil, why plod on in the old way ? In pure self-defense 
many of the Lutherans, and even some of the still more 
staid Reformed, have adopted this short-cut of the 
" anxious seat. " Of course, with the Disciples, who 
stand for Apostolic methods and practice in such mat- 
ters, this course is out of the question; they must wait 



SOME CAUSES OF FAILURE. 34I 

for the " growth " of the " seed of the kingdom," and 
depend upon " the law of the Lord " to " restore the 
soul," though "one man may sow" and another "en- 
ter into his labors." 

In another domain, however, it is well to call to 
mind the old Roman adage : Fas est ab hoste doceri — it 
is right to be taught by an enemy. A few comparisons 
will make the application plain. The Anti-M»ission 
Baptists, who, at the splitting of the Redstone Associ- 
ation, carried away a respectable portion of strength, 
number in Pennsylvania only 1,200 as against the 63,- 
483 of the regular body, and in the United States only 
40,000 as against the 2,133,044 of the Baptists. It 
must be confessed that in Pennsylvania, as a whole, the 
Disciples have in this respect been nearer of kin to the 
Anti-Mission Baptists than to the Baptists, and with 
results sufficiently alike to give room for serious reflec- 
tion. Such churches as have grown in any commend- 
able degree, like that of Somerset, have had more or 
less of the mission spirit. 

Again : the Presbyterians and the Congregational- 
ists have held to the same " Confession of Faith," yet 
the former number in Pennsylvania 127,310 members 
and the latter but 5,635, with a somewhat better show- 
ing for the United States. And the Independent Meth- 
odists have in Pennsylvania and the United States, re- 
spectively, 600 and 2,100 as against the 163,311 and 
1,680,799 of the Episcopal Methodists! Surely, all 
other things being equal, church independency does 
not prove to be an efficient thing. It is too much in- 
dependency that has been terribly ailing the Pennsyl- 
vania Disciples. The Saviour taught His disciples to 
learn even from the wicked world, saying, "The sons 



34- 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



of this world are for their own generation wiser than 
the sons of light," and it will be equally well for the 
Pennsylvania Disciples to learn from their religious 
neighbors. 

As the necessary corollary of independency, where 
each church can do "what seemeth right in his own 
eyes," come godless churches and graceless, irrespon- 
sible preachers. The early history of this State proved 
over and over again that while the German and other 
immigrants at once became citizens and sought the 
order of law and association, there was a Scotch-Irish 
element which, as a rule, pushed out to the frontier 
that they might be "a law unto themselves." Penn- 
sylvania being the first State of the Union in iron, 
steel and coal, has filled its mountains and valleys with 
large numbers of this "independent " class, from which 
the Disciples in particular have severely suffered. But 
even now a better day is dawning, and the day-star is 
in the sky. " Write the vision, and make it plain upon 
tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision 
is yet for the appointed time, and it hasteth toward the 
end, and shall not lie : though it tarry, wait for it ; be- 
cause it will surely come, it will not delay." 



" Gottes Muhlen mahlen langsam, 
Mahlen aber trefflich klein ; 
Ob aus Langmuth er sich saumet, 
Bringt tn.it Scharf er Alles ein," 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 

" O, listen, man ! 
A voice within us speaks that startling word, 
1 Man, thou shalt never die!' Celestial voices 
Hymn it unto our souls : according harps, 
By angel fingers touched when the mild stars 
Of morning sang together, sound forth still 
The song of our great immortality : 
Thick clustering orbs, and this our fair domain, 
The tall, dark mpuntains, and the deep-toned seas, 
Join in this solemn universal song, 
O, listen, ye, our spirits ; drink it in 
From all the air ! 'Tis in the gentle moonlight; 
'Tis floating midst day's setting glories ; Night, 
Wrapped in her sable robe, with silent step 
Comes to our bed, and breathes it in our ears : 
Night, and the dawn, bright day, and thoughtful eve, 
All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse, 
As one vast mystic instrument, are touched 
By an unseen, living Hand, and conscious chords 
Quiver with joy in this great jubilee. 
The dying hear it ; and as sounds of earth 
Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls 
To mingle in this heavenly harmony." — Dana. 



" Kneel down at the couch of departing faith, 
And hear the last words the believer saith. 



344 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



He has bidden adieu to his earthly friends ; 
There is peace in his eye that upward bends ; 
There is peace in his. calm, confiding air ; 
For his last thoughts are God's, his last words prayer." 

Henry Ware, 



Jr. 



One of the many lessons which Death has to teach, 
has been beautifully expressed by Col. R. M. Gibson, 
of the Pittsburg Bar, over the lamented Garfield, who 
was a minister of the same faith as the person here to 
be remembered : 

" The man who could so live that when he was smitten by that venge- 
ful, sane assassin, fifty millions of people watched about his bed, and 
listened for the news about him ; to whose sick-bed there came from all 
Europe, by lightning under the sea, inquiries of his pulse beat — this man 
did not die in vain. 

" Mr. Chairman, this man has made me think much. I have been a 
dreamy reader of the scientists. They have eliminated the devil and are try- 
ing to abolish perdition, and at times it looks like a contenting doctrine. 
But we can 't get even with scoundrels and assassins here. I now strike 
hands with the orthodox, turn a sharp corner, and stand where my mother 
placed me many years ago, and vote unanimously for hell." 

Such a lesson was taught by the death of Judge 
Black and its beautiful prayer, when one of his physi- 
cians, standing at his death-bed, was constrained to ex- 
claim : "A finer refutation of Ingersoll's doctrines can 
not be imagined than such a scene." 



" Sweet friends, what the women lave 

For the last sleep of the grave 

Is a hut which I am quitting, 

Is a garment no more fitting; 

Is a cage from which at last 

Like a bird my soul has passed. 

Love the inmate, not the room ; 

The weaver, not the garb — the plume 

The eagle, not the bars 

That kept him from the splendid stars." 



THE DiiATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 345 

Some die like Mary Morrison — 

Whose spirit sang in silence 

The songs of God she knew ; 
For harp of flesh lay broken 

Ere heaven hove in view. 

Others pass away in that holy, quiet confidence 
with which the trustful infant leans to sleep on its 
mother's breast. Their intimacies with God are too 
sacred to be confided to mortal ears, or too grand and 
glorious to find vehicle in the tongues of earth. They 
only think their " unutterable words " and wait for the 
infinite lessons of heavenly speech to do Him justice 
who is their Redeemer and Hope 

(i Rest in peace, thou gentle spirit, 

Throned above, — 
Souls like thine with God inherit 

Life and love !" 



" Just now, as the slumbers of night 

Came o'er me with peace-giving breath, 
The curtain, half lifted, revealed to my sight 
Those windows which look on the kingdom of light 
That boarders the river of death. 

" And a vision fell solemn and sweet, 

Bringing gleams of a morning-lit land ; 
I saw the white shore which the pale waters beat, 
And I heard the low lull as they broke at their feet 
Who walked on the beautiful strand, 

" And I wondered why spirits could cling 
To their clay with a struggle and sigh, 
When life's purple autumn is better than spring, 
And the soul flies away, like a sparrow, to sing 
In a climate where leaves never die." 



346 TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 

Oh ! in how many earthly matters, over and over 
again do we have to 

" — Sing for the breathless runner, 

The eager, anxious soul 
Who falls with his strength exhausted , 

Almost in sight of the goal. 

" For the hearts that break in silence 

With sorrow all unknown — 
For those who need companions, 

Yet walk their ways alone." 

But here is a course and here are lists where all 
who will can say with Paul : * ' I therefore so run, as 
not uncertainly ; -so fight I, as not beating the air;" and 
then can end with him : "I have fought the good fight, 
I have finished the course, I have kept the faith : hence- 
forth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness 
which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me 
at that day." 



Mary Ogle had always been waiting for the coming 
of her Lord. She never missed a Lord's day meeting, 
expecting He would come on such an occasion. On 
her death-bed, with her last remaining strength, she 
lifted her head to look for Him again and said: "I 

thought He would come before ," then went to 

Him. 

" All that my ardent soul can wish 

In Thee doth richly meet; 
Nbr to my eyes is light so dear 

Nor friendship half so sweet. 

'* I '11 speak the honors of Thy name 

With my last laboring breath ; 
And, dying, triumph in Thy cross — 

The antidote of death." 



THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 347 

" Lo ! He cometh — countless trumpets 

Wake to life the slumbering dead ; 
'Mid ten thousand saints and angels, 

See their great exalted Head : 

Hallelujah !— 

Welcome, welcome, Son of God !" 



Mary T. Graft, who was always scrupulously clean 
in person and dress, had to trust to other eyes during 
her last few weeks. Having been washed and dressed 
for the last time by her daughter, and being told 
" Novv, mother, you are neat and clean," she re- 
sponded, "Yes, daughter, all ready to go and see my 
heavenly Father," and then was instantly in His 



presence. 



" Purge me in that sacred flood, 
In that fountain cf Thy blood ; 
Then my Father's eye shall see 
Not a spot of guilt in me." 



The last words of Wm. H. Posthlethwaite were 
those of his regular evening devotion. He had been 
ailing for a series of weeks. One night he lay down to 
sleep and awoke in eternity. 

" Then steal away, give little warning, 

Choose thine own time ; 

Say not ' Good night,' but in some brighter clime 
Bid me ' Good morning.' " 



" There is no death ! The stars go down 
To rise upon some fairer shore ; 

And bright in heaven's jewelled crown 
They shine forevermore." 



348 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



As he felt his end drawing near, Edward Bevins 
sent for the chief singers of the church and asked for 
some of his favorite songs, such as — 

" O how kindly hast Thou led me, 

Heavenly Father, day by day ! 
Found my dwelling, clothed and fed me, 

Furnished friends to cheer my way ! 
Didst Thou bless me, didst Thou chasten, 

With thy smile, or with Thy rod ? 
'Twas that still my step might hasten 

Homeward, heavenward, to my God." 

Finally, as a few days thereafter his midnight sum- 
mons came, with beaming face he rose to a sitting pos- 
ture in bed and gazed on the coming heavenly hosts, 
then said, as he lay back: "They are coming. Glory 
Hallelujah!" 

" Let me go ; for songs seraphic 

Now seem calling from the sky — 
'Tis the welcome of the angels, 

Which e'en now are hovering nigh. 
Let me go ; they wait to bear me 

To the mansions of the blest ; 
Where the spirit, worn and weary, 

Finds at last its long-sought rest." 



" I tell thee his face is fair 

As the moon-bows amber rings, 
And the gleam of his unbound hair 

Like the flush of a thousand Springs ; 
His smile is the fathomless beam 

Of the star-shine's sacred light, 
When the Summers of Southland dream 

In the lap of the holy Night ; 
For I, earth's blindness above, 

In a kingdom of halcyon breath — 
I gaze on the marvel of love 

In the unveiled face of Death." 



THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 349 

The stormy life of Charles Ogle had a most peace- 
ful ending. His last exclamation was : "I see Jesus 
and Chauncey Forward walking down the street!" 
And who may doubt the truth of the happy vision ? 
Said not Paul in most solemn earnest, "Ye are come 
to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus 
the Mediator of the New Covenant" ? 

The veil how thin that hides from view 

The myriad glories God hath set ! 
How oft as mortals homeward drew 

Their eagtr sight those glories met! 
Through veil of flesh, as it was riven, 
What pre-view of God's world was given ! 



Equally striking were the last words of Mrs. Emily 
Ogle. 

In her dying sleep the last words she was heard to 
mtter were : 

" Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep." 

Shortly thereafter she found rest 

" Where the child shall find its mother, 
And the mother find her child." 



" Backward, turn backward, O Time in your flight, 
Make me a child again, just for to-night ! 
Mother, come back from the echoless shore, 
Take me again to your heart as of yore ; 
Kiss from my iorehead the furrows of care, 
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair, 
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep, — 
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 

" Mother, dear mother, the years have been long, 
Since I last listened your lullaby song ; 



350 



TALE OF A PIONEER CHURCH. 



Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem 
Womanhood's years have been only a dream. 
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace, 
With your light lashes just sweeping my face, 
Never hereafter to wake or to weep, — 
Rock me to sleepy mother \ rock me to sleep." 







^.^^O^i^ 




